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The Town — Sir Henry Maine in his "J'illiage Communities" says "the 
modern toivnsliip ivas an organized, self-acting group of Teutonic families 
exercising a common proprietorship on a definite tract of land, its "Mark,' 
ciilti-vating its domain on a common system and sustaining itself by produce." 
The arable land in this toivnship ivas the "arable mark" and the pasturage 
and rough land the "common mark." It is from this common mark that -a-e 
get our commons, and parks. In his "History of Neiv England^' Palfrey 
says: "H is a -very remarkable fad that the earliest English emigrants to 
Aorth .America, ^ho you kno^v belonged principally to the class of yeomanry, 
organized themsel-ves at first in village communities for purposes of cultiva- 
tion. If hen a tov^-n ^cas organized the process zcas that the general court 
granted a tract of land to a company of persons. The land ^vas held by the 
company as common property." hi such communities as the .4 mana So- 
ciety ive have these village communities organized on this theory of com- 
mon oivnership much after the pattern of the original Teutonic village com- 
munity and again on the pattern of our first American settlements. Many 
of our tO'Zvn habits come from the nature of the original village community, 
thus our publicly oivned streets, the obligation to pave and sideivalk on the 
common property, the duty to provide neater and other public services, the 
right to regulate public services, up to and including the railroads. 

The Market — In the earliest times the markets iverc neutral spots be- 
liveen the village communities, vchich ivere isolated and generally at ivar 
-ivith each other. The market teas a spot •zi-here all could meet ivithout ivar- 
fare, much as the pipe stone quarries arc the spot ivhcrc all Indian tribes 
come together ^without ivarfare. The notion of neutrality in ivar is supposed 
to be derived from the market of the old days. Not only ivas the market 
neutral, but it had rules of its oicn that ivere knoivn as "market law," and 
this market laiv is supposed to be the beginning of international lave. Many 
principles of our present day la-tv come from the old market la-zi', such as 
caveat emptor, or "let the buyer beware.'" It was the law of the market 
that everybody could sell at the highest price and buy at the lowest price. 
On the other hand, it was in bad form to drive a hard bargain with a mem- 
ber of one's owTi village community. Thus we have it today that ichile we 
may take advantage of the best prices ^ve can get in the open market, it is 
wrong to force a member of our own family, or a friend, or even a neighbor, 
to the wall. The same man who will buy at bankrupt prices in the open 
market will give money to help a neighbor or friend from being forced into 
bankruptcy. 

The County Seat — The Saxons in England had shires ruled by an earl, 
or "earlderman" (alderman) and a sheriff. .After the Norman conquest the 
shire became a county, under a count. Shakespeare uses count and county 
as the same; thus, "The county Paris." One third of the English counties 
were ancient kingdoms or sub-kingdoms. In the thirteenth century the 
coroner was added as a county officer. In the fourteenth century cities might 
become counties. The county was the unit for organizing the militia. In 
New England the town or township was made much of. The settlement 
was by towns. But the county in the middle west is an important governing 
unit, and the county seat the principal town. 



Z^ /iw*^^ dU^^^^ r-^^^^rij/^ ^_ 




lA-^^^ 



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-7 V"^V 



Three Tow^ns 



A Story of 
Municipal Beginnings 



"It sccnis to nic that the ten years from 1850 to i860 were more 
charged zvith enthusiasm than any other ten years in loica history. 
The State had just been admitted into the I'nion: the German im- 
migration, follouing the failure of the Revolution of 1848, had be- 
come a real factor ; the discovery of gold in California had started 
the ivestern world westward at a rapid pace for those days; the value 
of the prairies for profitable farming had been established and, al- 
most more important than anything else, it was demonstrated by 1850 
that steam railroads tcere not only feasible, but likely to become the 
very best kind of transportation. 

"In 1850 there were no railroads in loiva, but 'projects' were many. 
The Illinois Central Land Grant Act was passed in 1850, and the 
four big schemes for railroads across loiva, each one backed by a Land 
Grant, were luell under way and culminated in actual grants in 18^6. 
loica ivas fairly crazy over the possibilities of development. If the 
railroads tcere built as planned, icifh branches {is talked about, and 
the rush of immigration continued, how many toivns ivould be called 
for and ivould pay? There was hardly a limit. That meant town 
lots and speculation, and the spirit of speculation was in the blood of 
the pioneer. As a matter of fact, every town of importance in Iowa 
is now located upon a railroad, but in the ^os there zvere a myriad of 
guesses u'here the railroads icould go, luhicli meant many guesses 
u'here it ivould pay to make a town. 

"The ivhole thing of creating a town was inexpensive. A man 
had entered 160 ticres at $1.2^ per acre, or $240, and it would cost 
him maybe $§() to plot 40 acres of it into 400 lots, with 25 feet front , 
and if he could sell them at $2.c,t) apiece, he was away ahead. The 
prairies were on pre ivith the townsite fever. A good many swindles 
were natural. Upon the records of Des Aloines county there is a 
town plat of 'Lawrence.' It teas regularly located and thousands of 
lots were sold all over the United States — none in Burlington. Even 
noiv, inquiries are coming in about lots so and so in 'Lawrence.' It 
was located on swamp land that regularly overflowed from the 
Mississippi River every year, and never had a house nor an inhabitant , 
but the promoters made a lot of money. 

"It seems to me that the spirit of speculation, founded upon many 
hopeful indications and promises ivifhout number, was at the bottom 
of most of the town site schemes. It was just a part of a neiv world 
in the tanking: 1H61 stopped all that. For the time being, there ivaf 
nothing doing except to save the Union." — W. W. Baldwin, vice 
president of tlu- "Q" railroad. 



Gfft 

Ssnator 8.W. Brookhart 
March A . 1^33 



-a>3-rHn 



Town Beginnings 

But little more than a life time ago the first beginnings were 
made west of the Mississippi. Well within the time of men now liv- 
ing most of the county seat towns of Iowa were located. In the 
newer parts of the state the railroad stations have been built within 
fifty years. And yet it is hard for anybody to remember when 
our cities and towns were not part of the original landscape. It is 
with effort that we carry ourselves back to the 1850-60 decade when 
one-fourth of the present population of the state ferried the Mississippi 
ahead of the railroads, and scattering everywhere made their little 
beginnings. 

Town building began in the remote past. Our neolithic ancestors 
were divided into Nomads and "settled folk." The settled folk gath- 
ered in communities because their talent was social and they must 
protect themselves against their marauding and warlike brothers. 
TJiey built walls about their settlements, and "city" and "walled 
city" became synonymous terms. As far out from the walls of the 
city as the farmer and herder might wander with safety the terri- 
tory of the city state extended. Until comparatively recent times the 

Growth of Cities — "The steady expansion of industry and commerce 
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had been attended by a re- 
markable development of town life. The towns had begun to lose some of 
their medieval characteristics. They had spread out beyond their cramp- 
ing walls, roomy streets and pleasant squares made the newer sections at- 
tractive. The old fortifications, no longer needed for protection, served now 
as promenades. City thorouglif ares were kept cleaner, sometimes well 
paved with cobbles, and at night the feeble but cheerful glow of oil lamps 
lessened the terrors of the belated burgher who had been at the theater or 
listened to protracted debates at the town hall. In the towns of Europe lived 
bankers, merchants, shopkeepers, intelligent, able and \Vealthy enough to 
live like kings or princes. These bourgeois, or townspeople (bourg — town) 
were to grow in intelligence, in wealth, in political influence; they were 
destined to precipitate revolutions in industry and politics, thereby establish- 
ing their individual rule over factories, and their collective rule over legisla- 
tures. Except for the wealthy Italian city states and a few other cities 
which traced their history back to Roman times, most European towns, it 
must be remembered, dated only from the later middle ages. At first there 
was little excuse for their existence except to sell to farmers salt fish, iron 
and a few plows. With the increase of commerce, which as we shall see 
especiallv marked the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, mer- 
chants traveled through the country, ways of sending money multiplied and 
the little agricultural villages learned to look on the town as the place to 
buy not onlv luxuries, but such tools, clothing and shoes as could be manu- 
factured more conveniently by skilled town artisans than by clumsy rustics. 
By the sixteenth century the towns had grown out of their infancy and were 
maintaining a great measure of political and economic freedom." — Hayes' 
Political and Social History of Modern Europe. 



city state was the political unit of Europe. The little principality of 
Monaco with its famous Monte Carlo suggests to us how tin\" the 
city state could be. 

But it is not necessary to the introduction of three Iowa town plats, 
long since forgotten in everything but name, the fertile lands they 
dedicated long since reconverted into ploughed fields, to go back to 
our Neolithic ancestors. We need go no further back than to other 
similar beginnings west of the Mississippi to get into the spirit 
of the times and understand something of the hope and enthusiasm 
with which these shortlived ventures were made. That, of course, 
we must do or it would hardly be worth while to recall Irvington, 
Cresco and Ashuelot. 

There is this, however, to connect the beginnings in Iowa with 
the remotest beginnings of the settled folk. No matter how many 
thousands of years apart, two generations of men meeting the same 
■situation will act in the same way, and the Iowa pioneers, having to 
protect themselves against wandering nomads, began with walled 
•cities. The history of Iowa really begins with the building of Fort 
Armstrong at Rock Island, Fort Crawford at Prairie Du Chien, 
Fort Snelling at St. Paul and Fort Missouri at Council Bluff (a 
bluff on the west bank of the river some miles above Omaha.) It 
was at John C. Calhoun's suggestion when he was secretary of war 
that these forts were built to encircle the territory between the two 
rivers and protect it to settlement. There were many walled cities 
in Iowa, those of the Northern Border Brigade in 1862 were the last 
of them. When the troops were ordered away from Fort Dodge in 
1853 the last of the government forts was abandoned. But to thi.> 
day many speak of the capital city as Fort Des Moines. 

Immediately following military occupation civil administration 
was set up. This meant the count\- and the county seat. County 
seats were located by official boards, generally where communities had 

A State Capital — "In 1839 Iowa City was laid out and became the 
capital of the newly created territory. To guide immigrants who were mov- 
ing west and to encourage them to move into the territorial capital, one Ly- 
man Dillon was employed to plow a furrow between Iowa City and Du- 
buque, a distance of one hundred miles. By the beginning of 1840 twenty 
families had settled in Iowa Citv.'' — The Trans-Mississippi (Vest, Goodwin, 
1922. 

A Promising Village — "The old village of Fort Des Moines is the 
county seat of Polk county. It was evacuated by the United States Dragoons 
in 1846. It is situated on the Des Moines opposite the mouth of the Raccoon 
and at the proposed crossing of the railroad to Council Bluffs. It is a thriv- 
ing town.'' — Western Portraiture, New York, 1852. 



already sprung up, but sometimes because of the i2;e();i;raphy of the 
country in unsettled districts. Iowa City, the Hrst capital of the state, 
was platted, named the "City of Iowa" and made the capital before 
any considerable number of people had settled there. The county 
seat was spoken of in those days as the "seat of justice." That was 
one of the reasons for congref2:ating in towns. There could be no 
considerable settlement without a court house. For a multitude of 
reasons the county seat became the important town. One of tlie in- 
teresting reasons is because the county seat newspaper had the com- 
manding circulation. All the ingenuity, finesse and energy of the 
pioneer was expended in securing and holding the county seat. The 
exciting chapter in the history of every county may be headed "The 
county seat fight." Only in recent times have the county seats 
been accepted, some of them hardly accepted even now. The story 
of the county seats would be an interesting story in which all the 
initiative, daring and resource of the frontier woidd be pictured. 

Among the incidental reasons for town locations, we may put 
first the landing places along the Mississippi. Thus AIcGregor was 
called originally McGregor's Landing. Dubuque was built over the 
lead mines. The revolution of 1848 sent many bands of exiles to 
the middle western states and these settled in communities, llie loca- 
tion of scattered postoffices frequently determined community cen- 
ters. Most interesting of all these incidental reasons in those early 

The Once Selected Capital — "Jasper county lies east of Polk and Mon- 
roe City, the new proposed capital is in this county at the junction of two pro- 
posed railroad lines." — Western Porirai/ure, New York, 1852. 

Land Office and Water Power — "The railroad in contemplation from 
Davenport to Council Bluffs passes through Fort Des Moines, and several 
lines center in there. It is a place of great business facilities, surrounded 
by a delightful and exceedingly fertile country, with a good supply of water 
power in its vicinity for manufacturing purposes. A land office is situated 
there, besides other public buildings, and the crowd of emigrants on its 
streets give it a business-like appearance." — T/ie Great Jt'est, New York, 
1856. 

County Seat Newspapers — "In the middle states the towns were the 
original centers of settlement as in New England, but they have not reduced 
the county to insignificance. On the contrary the county seat is usually the 
chief center of business and political interest and the coveted spot at which 
to edit a newspaper sure of the largest circulation." — Encyclopedia .-1 m eri- 
ca na. 

The Hungarian Settlement — "The proposition of our federal govern- 
ment to grant to the patriot Louis Kossuth and his compatriots, a colony, a 
tract of land without pay on which to settle, is creditable to it. They have 
selected it in Iowa and call the place New Buda. It lies in a beautiful 
region of countrv in Decatur county, south of the Iowa river, and towards 
the Des Moines." The land was selected by General Ujhazy. Whether Kos- 
suth will struggle on or settle down in the colony with his fellow refugees, 
is r.ot vet known." — Ji'estern Pnrtaiture, New York, 1852. 



days was the asylum the frontier afforded. Dominie Scholte came to 
Iowa with his hand of Dutch immigrants because he sought religious 
freedom. In Icaria, in Adams county, a little band of French so- 
cialists centered. When the Mormon migration swept across the 
state the nonpolygamous members broke away, and Lamoni is still 
one of their homes. The national government gave a tract of land to 
Louis Kossuth and his Hungarian followers which they located in 
Decatur county, founding the new Buda. The four flourishing towns 
of the Amana society are an interesting study to this day. The Me- 
squakie reservation in Tama county bought and owned by the In- 
dians in their own right, preserves the community life of one of the 
greatest of the Indian peoples. 

But there are two reasons for town building that were peculiar 
to our American life, the school and the church. In old New England 
they had gone so far as to order families not to scatter beyond ability 
to congregate readily for religious services, and the school stood 
with them in the same relation as the church. The New 
Englander must he true to the institutions of New England, and 
where\er he went he was the evangelist of the American school and 
the American meeting house. It would be interesting to discover 
how many prosperous communities all over the west owe their start to 
the determination of the pioneers to be within convenient reach of 
school and church. On the Iowa frontier literally hundreds of 
mothers of New England training insisted, as their little families be- 
gan to grow, on "moving to town" to enjoy advantages. 

The story is toUi of one of the pioneer pre;;chers that he devoted 
much time to discovering an adequate fencing hedge in order that his 
people might be less scattered along the timbered fringes of the rivers 

A New England Town — "It is not difficult to construct a rough picture 
of a New England town. We do not read of a market place. The two 
unfailing and significant symbols of corporate life were the meeting house 
and the school. In some cases variety of soil and convenience of water must 
have led the settlers to straggle, so that lioldings in the village would be 
interspersed with uncleared land. In Plymouth, indeed, this tendency went 
so far that some of the townsmen were isolated from public worship. The 
legislature sought to check this tendency b\' enacting that in future no per- 
son should be allowed to settle on unoccupied land unless he had with him 
'such a competent company or number of inliabitants as the court shall judge 
meet to begin a society as may in a measure carry on things in a satisfactory 
way, both to civil and religious respects.' In other words, the colony was 
to consist of compact villages, not of scattered homesteads loosely grouped 
about certain central points. In the case of \\'atertown the chronicler ex- 
pressly tells us that 'her inhabitants nave scattered in such a manner that 
her Sabbath assemblies prove verv thin in the season, and have made this 
great town to show iiotiiing deligltful in any place.' " — Kiujlisli Cnlnnies in 
clmerica, Dovle. 



and center in the broad prairies. It was thus the Osage orange be- 
came so well known to Illinois and other western states. It is inter- 
esting to recall that the Rock Island railroad was diverted from 
Montezuma in Powesheik county and surve^^ed through Grinnell be- 
cause Mr. Grinnell was promising to build a college. 

Then there were the imaginary town plats of the promoters and 
speculators, how many of them in Iowa would require some search- 
ing of the records to discover. But they were many. Perhaps 
nobody in Iowa had quite the experience of the Nebraska pioneer 
who, noting a town plat on his state map about every five miles, set 
out from Omaha without providing himself even with a lunch, and 
after traveling some fifteen miles into blank wilderness, was cap- 
tured by a band of Indians and barely escaped with his life. But 
there were many town plats in Iowa whose onl\' habitation was 
on the handsomely lithographed sheets through which their beauties 
were brought to the attention of the nonresident investor. If the 
story of the towns that never were should be written that too would 
be a story of the ingenuity and finesse of the frontier, a pic- 
turesque and not altogether discreditable chapter, since there was 
something about town site promotion a little different from selling 
stock in bogus oil wells. 

But there was legitimate speculation in town property, as the 
town must be built before the industries of the town could grow, 
and the enterprise and money of the pioneers went to town build- 



Fencing the Prairies — '■Years ago Professor T. attempted to intro- 
duce into Illinois the New England s\stem of common schools. But he 
soon found the farmers who had located their farms along the borders of 
the prairies, near the timber, in order to build their fences with ease, were 
too widely scattered to be formed into school districts after the New Eng- 
land fashion. Before this could be done some method must be devised of 
fencing the prairies so that settlements could be made in the prairies. Mr. 
T. experimented with various shrubs for hedging, but without success un- 
til he made a trial of the Osage orange; this grows rapidly, endures the 
winter, and is covered with thorns. Now it is practicable to plant a village 
in the verv heart of the prairie with farms stretching out towards its bor- 
ders and in these compact settlements schools and churches can be sustained." 
— Thompson's letters from Illinois in Jfestfiri Portra'iturr, New York, 1852. 

In One Season" — "So quick and numerous are the changes in the west 
that the traveler of the spring returning by the same route in the autumn 
scarcely knows his whereabouts; and the pioneer who makes a summer's 
visit to his old home place is eciually surprised on his return, at the changes 
that have taken place, and hardlv recognizes the locality after the short ab- 
sence of one season." — Ifrstrrn Poitrahitre, New York, 1852. 

The Iowa Rush — "Probably no state in the union has ever been settled 
with greater rapiditv or in so short a period of time gained greater renown, 
than Iowa." — In-j.a As It Is. Chicago, 1855. 



inji;. An acre of land that liad cost from $3 to $15 could be made into 
three of four town lots that would sell frequently for $100 apiece, 
with the chance that they might some day be appraised by the front 
foot, and run into substantial little fortunes. All the older men still 
point out the spots in Chicago where they might have bought for a 
song, while in Des Moines and in every other Iowa city the popular 
story of the old settlers meeting is a story of fortunes lost by not 
buying or not holding important corners to be. If all the people who 
might have been rich by buying or holding town property could be 
gathered in one great Iowa picnic, it ma\' be questioned whether all 
the town sites of the state together would hold them. In 1855 the 
Daily Wisconsin, of Milwaukee, published the report of a sale of 
city property to show that there was "confidence in the rising value 
of real estate in this city." The prices of lots in the central parts of 
the present city ranged from $37.50 to $505. Twenty sales are re- 
ported and the average price would not exceed $125. 

It is a curious fact that from the very first the investor and specu- 
lator in lands was denounced. Across from Dubuque was the older 
town of Cassville. A writer of the times says "It is cursed by the 
land monopoly blight, of eagerly miserly speculators, mostly non- 
residents." Even Horace Greeley remarked in 1848 that the newly 
projected railroad routes "are largely cursed with the blight of land 
speculation and nonresident ownership." One writer insists that 
some of the best farms were off the main roads because land specula- 
tion had forced their owners to seek cheaper lands. In one book of 
those times there are three or four formal protests against land specula- 
tion as the ruin of Iowa. "I speak of it thus often because wherever 
we move, every step we take almost, we meet it; we see its injurious 

Too Thick — "A true pioneer crossed my path. He had lived in 
Iowa since the first settlement, but now the inhabitants were getting too 
thick for him. They had towns and fences and 'lawing and jawing" and 
he was going west. He liad been up to tlie headwaters of the Missouri 
and had secured a quiet spot among tlie Indians in Nebraska." — Jf'estern 
Portraiture, New York, 1852. 

Platted Everything — "Towns were laid out in those days with ref- 
erence to natural advantages presented by the Mississippi river and its tribu- 
taries, hence every spot of ground along the river above high water mark 
(and some below) was surveyed, platted, pictured and named." — First an- 
nual address of Hon. John P. Cook, Davenport, January 23, 1858. 

Indian V'ii.i.ages — "Indian villages which in 1849 were scattered along 
the Mississippi and the St. Croix rivers northward from Prairie Du Chien 
were replaced in a few years by the thriving towns or cities of Lansing in 
Iowa, Prairie Du Chien, Prescott and Hudson in Wisconsin, by Winona, 
Red ^^'ing and Stillwater in Minnesota." — The Trans-Mississippi If est, by 
(joodwin. 



■effects upon the community; it is not only detrimental to the com- 
munity, but it is detrimental to the best progress and prosperity of the 
nation, by retarding the settlement and population of the frontier." 

But after all has been said of the multiplied reasons for the town 
site locations of the state, the fact remains that it was the railroad 
that determined where our cities and trading centers should be, and 
even established county seats were not able to withstand the damning 
effect of being passed by on the other side. Fortunateh" tlie rail- 
roads entered the state as the principal towns and cities were being 
platted, and with foresight the promoters selected the available places, 
and then bent untiring energies to securing railroad attention. In 
not so many instances were really promising communities killed 
but it did happen here and there and today the shrunken remains of 
what at one time promised to be real centers of population are not 
hard to Hnd. If the railroad did not come to the people the people 
went to the railroad. A chapter of town tragedies could be written; 
some of them of towns that failed because their promoters believed 
the railroad dared not pass them, some of them of towns well located 
in a general way but not located well in a railroad way, some of them 
of towns deliberately slighted because of the cupidity or worse of the 
railroad locating agent. But generally speaking, the town site lo- 
caters had shrewd eyes for the available railroad routes, and the rail- 
roads in the most accommodating way wound in and out to reach 
the trading centers. While there are probably almost rs many aban- 
doned tow'n sites in the state as there are towns today, still the num- 
ber of towns that really were entitled to live and did not is negligible, 
or if not negligible, at least very nearly so. 

The 1855 Rush — "The immense immigration to tlie interior of Iowa 
this season exceeds by far all former years. The roads are full of immigrant 
teams; the groves, creeks and woodlands seem alive with men, women and 
children encamped in wagons, tents and cabins imtil houses can be erected. ' 
— loiva As It Is, by N. Howe Parker, published in Chicago, 1855. 

The Iowa Land Rush — "During a single year four millions acres of 
land were transferred to settlers — to do a 'land office business' became a 
phrase of the time. Men stood in line at many of the offices until they froze 
their feet. Eventually numbers were issued by the land offices and those 
who drew them had in many cases time to go and put in their crops and re- 
turn before the officials could reach their numbers in making transfers. The 
tide of immigration was at its height in 1854 and continued through 1856." — 
A History of the People of loiva, b3' Cyrenus Cole. 

The Interior Towns — "The interior towns are in general small, con- 
sisting chiefly of agricultural settlements. Salem in Henry county is a thriv- 
ing settlement and chiefly inhabited by meinbers of the Society of Friends. 
A considerable settlement of Mormons is settled in Pottawattamie county." 
— Travellers' and Tourists' Guide Book Through ffestern States," New 
York, 1855. 



The decade beginning in 1850 was to witness a migrating tide 
which was to siceep over the tvaste places of lozva and to inundate 
the valleys and hills with more than sufficient human energy to build 
up a commonwealth of the first rank. 

There zvere several things which encouraged migration during this 
period. Railroad lines had been completed to the Mississippi and so 
the eastern border of the state ivas easily reached. It was during this 
decade also that the roads began advertising western lands. Land 
speculators and land companies offered inducements which appeared 
most alluring to the land hungry men of the more densly populated 
areas further east. Guides for emigrants ivere published in great 
quantities, and articles "containing ghnving accounts of the advan- 
tages and fertility of the Iowa country appeared in hundreds of east- 
ern newspapers until the name 'Iowa' became a household ivord, and 
those ivho ivere so fortunate as already to win a home in that far-famed 
state ivrote enthusiastic letters to their relatives and former neighbors 
urging them to come and share in their prosperity." 

These inducements, combined icith a fatal epidemic of cholera in 
the middle states and a severe drouth throughout the ()hio valley 
during the summer of 18^4. brought homeseekers to loiva by thou- 
sands, particularly during the years of /t)57 and iSs^- 

During the fall and early icinter of 18^4 there icas an al/nost 
uninterrupted procession of immigrants crossing the ferries at Prairie 
Du Chien, Dubuque, Burlington, and Keokuk. Sometimes they had 
to wait in camp tjvo or three days for their turn to cross. It was esti- 
mated that ticenty thousand people crossed the ferry at Burlington in 
thirty days, and at the end of that period the number increased to 
six or seven hundred a day. About one wagon in one hundred ivas 
marked Xebraska, the others ivere to halt in loiva. Jt Keokuk such 
large /lumbers of settlers came in by boat that a journalist ivas led to 
say that by the side of this e.xodiis "that of the Isrealites becomes an 
insignificant item and the greater migrations 0/ later times are scarcely 
to be mentioned." It leas said that one thousand people from Rich- 
mond (jou/ity, Ohio, alone came to loiva that t/ill, ichile long double 
headed trains broiiglit into (Jhieago thousands of liome seekers every 
week. — "The Trans-Mississippi West," hy Goodwin. 



Once County Seats 

\Vhile we are considering town beginnings in Iowa in their gen- 
eral relations it is worth while to tarry a moment before we come 
to the rather incidental story we have before us with a few of the in- 
teresting county seat controversies of the north central counties, each 
of them more or less directly related, to the beginnings in Kossuth. 

Of these the controversy over Homer, if not most interesting, 
had greater consequences. Homer had been located by the commis- 
sioners in 1853 as the county seat of a territory comprising all of 
present day Webster, all of present day Hamilton, and half of pres- 
ent day Humboldt. What is now Webster had been Risley, and 
what is now Hamilton had been \'ell, and what is now Humboldt 
was divided when Risley and \ ell were consolidated and half was 
given to the consolidated Webster and half to Kossuth. In the days 
of Homer, therefore, Kossuth was a boundary neighbor, and Algona 
promised to be a neighboring county seat. 

In the northwest corner of this great consolidated county the 
militar\ barracks of Fort Dodge had just been abandoned by the 
United States troops, and Major William Williams, who had come 
as sutler to the post, had bought the abandoned buildings and was 
planning a city of his own. An energetic and resourceful young 
man, John F. Duncombe, had married Major Williams' daughter, and 

Land Office to Fort Dodge — "On the first of September, 1855, the land 
office at Fort Dodge will be opened, and some thirteen counties of land 
(Kossuth among them) brought into the market. The author made a tour 
through this district in June inst., and can assure those wishing desirable 
locations that the northwestern part of the state is rich in eligible millsites, 
heavy timbered lands, running streams of pure and lasting water, the best 
of prairie soil, and extensive beds of iron ore, coal, g},-psum, red and yellow 
ocre." — Ioii-a .7j // Is, by N. Howe Parker, 1855. 

Losing the Land Office — "Homer, the county seat of Webster county, 
grew with surprising rapidity and its fame reached the eastern states and 
it became the most noted city in northern Iowa. Had Homer secured the 
land office instead of Fort Dodge it would probably be one of the first cities 
of the state and the line of east and west railroad would probably have 
passed through there. But while its citizens were building up and swelling 
with importance over being the most prosperous and most populous town 
in the northwest, the shrewder citizens of Fort Dodge secured the land of- 
fice and took everybody to that place, and as a matter of course where every- 
body goes a great many will stay. Fort Dodge now began to build with a 
vigor that surprised the Homerites and a rivalry was at once started and so 
constantly were the eyes of the Homer people kept on Fort Dodge that they 
almost forgot that another equally powerful rival was springing up at New 
Castle (Webster City). But Homer was the county seat and grew almost as 
fast as both her rivals until in the fall of 1856.'" — History of Hamilton County. 




WHEN HOMER WAS THE CITY 

This map, wliicli must have been drawn very early, was published in 
Jf'cll's Ilandbonk of loiva in 1857. It will be interesting to compare it with 
the other maps that came later and to notice how postoffices and then vil- 
lages begin to dot these northern prairies. The name of many familiar lo- 
cations will appear, many of them long since lost to the official maps of the 
state. This map is notable because the Upper Des Moines appears as the 
Moingonan, and the Little Moingonan. It will be seen that Homer is set 
out like a state capital while Fort Dodge is noted as merely a camping ground 
on the line of the prospective railroad. 



being a town builder had also filled the imagination of the son-in-law. 
If this combination of ambition and talent and old fort cabins did 
not appear at first any larger on the horizon of Homer's future than 
a man's hand, it appeared much larger later on, and it finally over- 
clouded a prospect that at one time was as promising as that of any 
new town in the whole state. 

To understand what happened to Homer we must keep in mind 
that the old Webster was two counties in width, and Homer was al- 
most on the dividing line between them, an impossible location if by 
any hap the two old counties should ever be restored. It is strange 
that this did not occur to the Homerites, particularly after the Wil- 
sons had begun at old New Castle, now Webster City, and W. C. 
Wilson and John F. Duncombe had got their heads together. But 
Homer was growing as rapidly as both Fort Dodge and New Castl^ 
together, and without question the people were committed to things 
as they were. 

It may be doubted whether in any event Homer could have held 
its place. Kossuth is the only county into which two of the original 
counties have been merged to stay merged and that only because of 
the territorial dismemberment caused by the Minnesota state line 
which cuts off half a tier of townships from the north central coun- 
ties, leaving a serious problem of subdivision under the constitutional 
limitation of area of new counties. The two old counties of 
Risley and Yell were almost sure to be set apart some day. Homer 
was not well located, either, for the east and west railroad from Du- 
buque to Sioux City, although if Webster had never been divided 
and Homer supremacy never challenged, the railroad might have di- 
verted to accommodate so important a town. But the logic of the 
situation was against Homer. 

It was not a railroad location that determined the Fort Dodge- 
Homer rivalry, it was the location of the land office. Mr. Dun- 
combe caught Homer napping and took the land office to Fort Dodge, 
and the land office being the one office every new comer must visit, 

The Des Moines Stage — "The stage went weekly between Des Moines 
and Homer, by way of Boone. With the prairies often soaked by rain and 
with only trails to follow, staging was difficult and slow. Many a traveler 
preferred the safe method of walking to doubtful progress by stage. The 
mail, however, was an important item of the stage driver's load, and though 
passengers might be obliged to get out and walk, I'ncle Sam's mail had 
to be carried safely across slough and stream. As late as the sixties the 
stage was the only recognized means of regular travel between Homer and 
Des Moines." — The Passing of Homer, by Bessie L. Lyon. 



Fort Dodge soon became his real point of destination. And the land 
office being crowded with business and there being inevitable delays, 
Fort Dodge for weeks was inevitably the place of residence of the in- 
comer. The land office settled the fortunes of more than one ambitious 
city of early Iowa. 

It may seem strange that the issue should have been forced on the 
removal of the county seat to Fort Dodge, rather than on division 
of the county. But perhaps sentiment for dividing the county could 
not be rallied so long as Homer was the county seat. Then, too, 
Homer did not seem to see what Fort Dodge and Webster City were 
up to, and shut its eyes to the stake Webster City had in helping Fort 
Dodge. In any event the strategy of the campaign was first to re- 
move the county seat. F. Q. Lee in his sketches of those times says 
"John F. Duncombe as leader of the Fort Dodge forces made an 
agreement with the people of New Castle by which both towns were 
to join in removing the county seat to Fort Dodge, after which the 
Fort Dodgers were to assist in securing the county seat of the new 
county for New Castle." If Homer knew this it was not known in 
time. 

When the day of election came there were 407 votes for Fort 
Dodge and 264 for Homer. As the 204 votes for Homer were within 
twenty votes of the largest known total for the county. Homer felt 
confident of the result. But in those early days of floating popula- 
tions an election was anything the leaders had the audacity to plan 
and the nerve to execute. Both sides knew the other would poll a big 
vote and the only question was how big a vote would be needed. 
Fort Dodge and Webster City took no chances and so long as they 
were purloining citizens, decided to purloin enough. Homer was 
virtuously indignant and for a time there was talk of armed resistance 
to the removal of the county records. But Homer could not come 
into court with clean hands and in the end the result was acquiesced 
in. Mr. Lee expresses the opinion that "had an honest and fair count 
been had it is more than probable that Homer would have retained 
the county seat." Homer might, as it turned out, much better have 
cast an honest ballot and gone to the courts than to compromise with 
ballot stuffing and then be beaten at it. 

The story is told with more or less assurance that Mr. Dun- 
combe, when the ballot was questioned, suggested a wrestling match 
to settle it and that such a match was held. A wrestling match en- 
tered into the situation somewliere, for the storv has been handed down 



in too many families not to have some substance. That, too, was 
characteristic of the frontier. It was not by accident that Abraham Lin- 
cohi won fame as a wrestler. Market day in any pioneer settlement 
was wrestling day, and leading; citizens prided themselves. 

Homer is still on the map in Hamilton county, but Bessie L. 
Lyon, whose aunt was the first white woman married in Homer, 
pictures it the shadow of its once self: 

"Stranded, ten miles from the railroad, its business 
gone and its citizens leaving. Homer simply shriveled up. 
Year by year it has decayed and disintegrated until now — 
a few scattered houses, a group of old tumble down build- 
ings, a wooden schoolhouse — these are all that remain. 
Homer, its early visions of greatness gone (there is not even 
a Standard Oil station in town), is just a bit of wreckage on 
the historical horizon." 

Concord 

If it was the location of the land office that settled the fate of 
Homer in Webster county, it was the survey of one railroad that set- 
tled the fate of Concord as the county seat of Hancock county, and 
the hasty building of another railroad that finally held the county 
seat for (jarner. 

It is one of the ironies of names that one of the most hotly con- 
tested seats of government in the history of county seats should be 
Concord. 

Concord was located in the open prairies in the extreme eastern 
township of the county because that was at about the half way point 
between the two pioneer settlements, one in the timber that fringed 
the eastern edges of the county to the north, and the other in the tim- 
ber that fringed the eastern edges of the county to the south. The 
county seat had been swinging from one of these settlements to the 
other until they finally agreed on a neutral spot, and the settlement 
naturally suggested "Concord." 

There was some talk at the time that the county seat ought to be 
located nearer the geographical center of the county. But there was 

Government Lands in 1865 — "The vacant lands in this district, be- 
longing to the United States, as furnished by General Richards, register of 
land office at Fort Dodge, are divided as follows and include the $1.25 and 
$2.50 lands: Palo Alto, 150.000 acres; Kossuth, 280,000; Emmett, 150,000, 
etc." — Description of lo^va, by Wm. Doane Wilson, Des Moines, 1865. 



no Britt in those days, and to go further west would only mean ad- 
ditional travel for the two settlements. 

A $10,000 brick court house was ordered and built at Concord, 
and the townsite promised to be a profitable speculation for the 
Messrs. Brockway and Elder, two of the best known of the pioneers. 
But the men who located the townsites of the Milwaukee in 1870 had 
a prospective stake of their own in the growth of towns along the 
road, and Brockway and Elder did not take the locaters so se- 
riously as the situation might have warranted. The feeling was that 
Concord was too big a town to be passed by. But the railroad locaters 
joined with John Mabin and going a little way away platted the 
townsite of Garner, and the railroad was surveyed through Garner. 

This was in 1870. It was not until twenty-eight years later that the 
county seat agitation focused in a petition from Britt, now a flourish- 
ing town, for removal from Concord to Britt. To this Garner, 
which had to all intents and purposes absorbed Concord, offered 
stout resistance. Garner deposited $30,000 with the county treasurer 
with which to build a new court house, and Garner projected a rail- 
road up through the northern townships of the county terminating 
at Titonka in Kossuth county, for the purpose of weaning the nortli 
townships away from Britt. In this way Garner secured enougli 
remonstrants to defeat the Britt petition. 

With the Britt petition out of the way Garner, instead of secur- 

LOCATING Concord — "Fifteen years after the first settlement of Han- 
cock county its population numbered less than 500 souls. There was not a 
store in its limits, and the nearest market for its surplus was thirty-five or 
forty miles away, reached by roads that had never known a bridge fund 
or been marred by the spade of the pathmaster. The actual settlers were 
confined to a strip along the timbered banks of Lime Creek in the extreme 
north, and the groves on the banks of tlie Iowa in the extreme south. Be- 
tween the two solitary settlements stretched twenty miles of prairie without 
house, tree or bridge, with scarcely a wagon track. The county seat was 
alternately at Upper Grove or Ellington, as either could get the needed 
odd vote and was carted back and forth in a wagon, being in reality a half 
dozen or more volumes known as the county records, and the successful 
candidates. The last change of the kind was made in the autumn of 1864 
from the latter to the former place by a vote of 38 to 37. That was the 
whole voting population, and wouKl indicate that the county had at that 
time about 3 50 inhabitants. About this time the question of a permanently 
located county seat was agitated and the present site of Concord was de- 
termined upon. Land was bought, a town plat surveyed, two cheap frame 
houses built for homes and offices of the treasurer and county clerk and the 
contract was let for a brick court house to cost $10,000. The county seat 
was located six miles east of the geographical center, when the center af- 
forded an excellent site for a town, and was bitterly criticized at the time. 
In due time the court house was completed, a fine roomy structure, far in 
advance of the improvements of the county then." — History of Hanrork 
County, published in Springfield, 111., 1884. 



ing a vote of removal from Concord to Garner, set about taking 
the county seat by merely annexing Concord and making it part of 
Garner. The board of supervisors then authorized the removal of the 
court house from the Concord plat to the Garner plat, and a $30,000 
building was built with the Garner money. But Britt at once brought 
a suit of injunction against taking the county records off the townsite 
of Concord. In the district court Britt was defeated but the su- 
preme court on appeal reversed the lower court, and held that the 
county records could only be taken from the site of Concord by vote 
of the people setting up a new county seat. As there was a five year 
limitation on filing petitions for removal of county seats Garner 
could do nothing but await the expiration of the five year period, and 
during the five years from 1898 to 1903 the Garner court house stood 
vacant. In the latter year Garner filed a petition of removal and 
Britt remonstrated, but unavailingly, for the people in the election 
voted to remove from Concord to Garner. 

Probablv in the history of the state no other railroad was pro- 



The Rau.road to Titonka — "The editor of The Upper Des Moines 
visited Titonka Friday. This is what he saw with his own eyes: 

"At least five miles of railway laid in corn stubble where not a spade 
full of dirt had been turned for a grade. 

"A town 60 days old with at least 60 buildings great and small. 

"A town 60 days old with a telephone exchange having 25 'phones now 
being put in. 

"A town 60 days old with a newspaper that took in $2U4 in cash for 
advertising and job work the first month. 

"A town 60 days old that gets 300 letters a da\- througli the postoffice. 

"A town 60 days old that shipped out 93 carloads in February and 
shipped in 38. 

"A town 60 dajs old with a better depot than either in Algona, with 
two better lumber sheds and offices than either in Algona, with three eleva- 
tors as good as Algona's. 

"The Titonka railwa\-, the Lath &• Northwestern, as Baile\ calls it, is 
worth a trip to see. It had not reached Woden, seven miles east of Titonka, 
when the ground froze up. The grading for the depot grounds at Woden 
was done with dvnamite — Woden, the war god, is a fitting name — and the 
hunks of dirt weighing a ton or more that were excavated thus still lie like 
monuments about the depot. A mile west of Woden the dynamite gave out, 
the engineer quit his job, the iron and ties were not forthcoming, and only 
20 days remained during which the Buffalo township tax was valid. Titonka's 
fate hung on a thread, but it was a good stout thread. The Ways got the 
engineer back and the iron on the ground, and turning the track off the 
right-of-way began the most unique railway on earth. It actually turns 
out and runs around a hay stack. And at a house that stands on a hill on 
the right-of-way it makes a detour of a quarter of a mile, like a country 
road running round a slough. It winds in and out, up and down, here and 
there, wherever a level place shows up, and finally gets to Titonka, wliere 
it runs over a hill to a turntable, the freight cars on the switch balancing 
across the hill half on one side and half on the other. It is reported that 



jected or built as this road from Garner up around to Titonka. 
Township taxes had been voted to aid in the construction and the 
winter of 1898 crowded upon the builders before they were within 
many miles of their destination. These taxes were in the way of 
being lost, when with a great burst of speed the builders laid their 
ties over the frozen stubble fields, choosing the level ground, going 
out about hay stacks and ponds, driving the last spikes in the 
rails on the date set. Passengers who trusted themselves to the Gar- 
ner-Titonka train the next spring enjoyed an experience they will 
never forget. The utmost speed was some four or five miles an 
hour, the engine swaying from side to side as it encountered the 
ups and downs of the surfrxe of the ground. Not a spadeful of dirt 
had been stirred in the last five miles of the road, and no trail in 
the woods ever developed more crooks and turns. 

In this connection is worth while to recall one of the best of 
E. N. Bailey's contributions ("Bailey of Britt.") Tlie road was 
projected in May and the vote on Britt's petition for the county seat 
was to com.e in Jui:e. Bailey, sensing that voting on the road in May 

over in Hancock county some of the people talk of contesting tlie tax be- 
cause tiie road was not 'completed' in the specified time. They ought to be 
willing to pay two taxes to have it left 'uncompleted.' That road will have 
more travel than any equal line on earth if the proprietors will only keep 
it as it is. The train leaves Lake Crystal at 10:05 o'clock. It is 14 miles to 
Titonka and you make the run in from two to two and a half hours, in- 
cluding a visit to Woden." — Harvey Ingham in The Upper Des Moines, 
March 8, 1899. 

THE "LATH A\D NORTHWESTERN" RAILROAD 




One glance at the direction of the Garner-Titonka railroad will show 
how well it was aimed to tie the north tier of townships in Hancock to 
Garner, and to prevent Britt from consolidating the western county sup- 
port. Probably a bolder move was never made in a county seat fight in the 
state. And yet the little road was soon taken over by tlie Rock Island and 
has been successfully operated as a railroad. 



had somethino; to do with xotin^ on the county seat in June, exposed 
what he considered to he the "hole": 

* ''" ^ The Garner construction company is getting along fine in 
building their cars and coaches for the Crystal Lake extension. They have 
all the windows of the coaches laid out, the doors at the ends of the cars 
and the holes inside the smokestacks. Even the spaces between the seats, 
the holes inside the water coolers, the key holes in the doors, the ventilating 
holes in the roof, the spaces under tiie coaches between the wheels, the 
space between the ends of the coaches above the platform, the holes in- 
side the whistles, the holes inside the air tubes and steam radiators, are all 
laid out by the engineers. To make air hose, they will take the long 
hole already laid out by the engineers and simply run rubber around it. To 
make the steam pipe they will take the hole and run iron around it. The 
laying out of these holes beforehand is done to economize on time as they 
must get the remonstrance all signed prior to May 26, and time is very 
precious, and should they fail entirely in getting any other material they 
can show tlie cushions filled with hay in the stuffing department of the 
upholstery division, and these holes all carefully planned and laid out by 
their distinguished, competent and skilled engineers. There is notiiing like 
economy on space. This plan of laying out the openings instead of the 
structure itself is one entirely original with Garner, and bids fair to create 
a revolution in the architectural design. For instance, when erecting a 
building the architect, instead of laying out the building itself, first lays out 
some atmosphere as a background, and then lays out the doors, windows, 
stove pipe hole, cat hole, transoms and all openings. The builder simply 
fits material into the part not occupied by the holes and structures immediately 
arise that will be the wonder and admiration of succeeding ages. This can 
all be done with no material whatever, and allow one to "anticipate the 

CONCORD ON THE MAP 




Peale's map of Iowa, published in Chicago in 1876, is perhaps the only 
one that shows old Crocker county. Crocker had a very short official life, 
only long enough for an appeal to the supreme court. This map is inter- 
esting in this connection because Concord is printed in black letters as the 
countv seat of Hancock countv. 



I'.Sl IIL:R\ Il.LH'S TWO RAILROADS 



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This map showing tiie two railioads between Emmeisburg and Esther- 
ville was published by Warner & Foote in Minneapolis in 1885. Swan Lake 
is still given the prominence of the county seat while Estherville is put 
down with the villages and coiintrv postolfices, although the county seat 
was voted back to Estherville in 1882. One of the interestirg features of 
this map is locating the Darien settlement in Kossuth. The vVaterhouses, 
tiie V\'illiarns brothers, and five or six others drove from Darien. Wis., in 
1868 and made the first settlement in what is now Fenton township. They 
named it Darien, and for a time there was a Darien township. This map 
also locates Soda Bar in Palo Alto county. Soda Bar once iiad a sawmill 
and a newspaper. James P. \\'liite, uncle of Thomas and Joe Sherman, 
editeii the paper. 

Speaking of the Milwaukee extension to Estherville, T. W. Harrison of 
Emmetsburg, who was intimateh' associated with the Milwaukee, once said 
that the name of Emmetsburg was to have been changed to Merrill, in 
honor of the general manager of the Milwaukee, and then he added: "I 
learned afterwards that Mr. Merrill built the Estherville branch with the 
idea that the name would be changed. It was his plan to connect through 
to Fargo, North Dakota, and make the city the division point on this line, 
with its offices, roundhouses and shops. It would have pleased him greatly 
to have this town given his name and he would have made it one of the 
most im|)i)riani points of the wlMile Iowa-Dakota division." 



contractor." The road bed itself will be laid out the same way. The holes 
through the culverts, space under the bridges, space between ties, the post 
holes for the fence, and the telegraph holes can all be made at once. Nace 
Benson and Lawler have the contract to make the telegraph and post holes, 
they have several cellars cut up into holes already, and are distributing 
the holes inside the glass insulators on the telegraph poles as souvenirs and 
watch charms marked W. O. S. (watch our smoke). They will begin to 
cut the ravines into "railroad space" soon. 

The road proved to be a success, however, as a railroad \enture 
after havini^; saved the county seat for (larner. 

Swan Lake 

Two railroads were involved in the final settlement of the county 
seat war in Emmett county, but not in quite the same way as in Han- 
cock county ; in fact the second railroad had rather more to do with 
the fortunes of Emmetsburi; in Palo Alto count\ than of Esther\ille 
in Emmett. 

Esther\ille had been selected back in 1858 by Lewis H. Smith 
from Kossuth and Orlando C. Howe from Dickinson for the same 
reasons that Concord was selected in Hancock, because the early 
settlement was along the timber, which happened in the case of E!m- 
mctt to be in the northwest corner of the county. It was not until 
twenty years later that enou>i:h people had settled in the eastern part 
of the county to complain, but in 1878 when the old court house 
burned, they began to make themselves heard. 

Prrr Cravath Visits Swan Lake — "We had heard much ar.d often of the 
!ievv Swan Lake City, and last week visited this prospective metropolis of 
Emmett county, to judge for ourself as to its present status and future capa- 
bilities. The approach to the new town from this direction is over as fine 
a stretch of rich, roiling prairie countr\- as it is possible to imagine. \\'ithin 
a few miles of the burg one passes between and around several lovely lakes, 
bordered with fine groves of oak, black walnut and other native timber. 
The town itself is situated upon Swan Lake, a beautiful body of water, 
some seven or eight miles in length, and just opposite the town from two 
or three miles in width. Next to town is a wide, sandy beach, while oppo- 
site the greensward and trees approach to the water's edge. Nearly in the 
center of the lake is a beautiful island of some five acres in extent, well 
supplied with a fine shade of native oaks. The town itself is situated upon 
a high table-land on the northern shore of the lake, and affords a delight- 
ful view of one of the finest bits of scenery to be found in the country; 
forest, lake and prairie, with frequent farm houses and herds of cattle, 
forming a natural scene which for beauty is rarely equalled. Though in 
its very infancy, the town is making rapid strides toward the prominence to 
which it is destined. One of the first improvements made was the erection 
of a commodious building by Mr. J. H. Warren, and the establishment of 
a steam grist mill. This drew the neighboring farmers to the prospective 
town, and formed the nucleus around which soon sprung up other industries. 
A postoffice was shortly afterwards located here, with Mr. Robert Roan, 
postmaster. Mr. Roan erected a roomy two story building, where he ac- 
commodates the traveling public until the new hotel now in contemplation 
is erected. A voung, enterprising man has opened a blacksmith and re- 



The story of the old court house brings us to one of the interest- 
ing developments of the times. Contracts were let in Kossuth, Palo 
Alto and Emmett to deed all of the swamp lands of these counties 
to private contractors in return for erecting some county buildings. 
Each county acted separately, of course, and made its own contract. 
In Emmett a court house and school house were to he built, and the 
school house was built and the court house begun when the govern- 
ment refused to accept the county survey of swamp lands, and the 
county could not convey title. The court house never was built, and 
the school house was moved to a new site and was used for a court 
house. It was the school house that burned in 1878, thereby start- 
ing the agitation for removal from Estherville. 

The story of the founding of the hopeful village of Swan Lake 
is intimately associated with Algona, for Swan Lake was projected 
and mainly built by Algona men and money. Among the first of the 
Algonians to pioneer was the veteran newspaper man, J. H. War- 
ren, who very soon after locating in Emmett, was elected a member 
of the board of supervisors, and in that capacity worked untiringly 
for the removal of the county records. There were petitions and 
remonstrances, about which some interesting tales could be told, and 
finally a four to one vote of the county board to go to Swan Lake. 

Then began the legal proceedings, the principal charge being 

paiiii.g shop, a..d doubtless does a good business. A small miscellaneous 
stock, consisting of groceries, boots and shoes, etc., such as is usually kept 
in countrv stores, was brought in some time since. Mr. Warren has just 
fitted up a very pleasant office to receive the printing stock of the I'indhator, 
recentiv purchased by him, and which will be at once transferred from 
Estherville to Swan Lake, at which latter place the paper will hereafter 
be published. Mr. Cowell, of Illinois, has recently erected a convienient 
law and real estate office, of which he expects soon to take possession and 
open business. He is also erecting a fine residence somewhat off the busi- 
ness center of the town. Judge Swetting, of Berlin, Wis., whom we men- 
tioned several weeks since as having purchased a considerable interest in 
Swan Lake, will temporarily occupy tlie Cowell building until his own 
shall be erected. Judge Jenkins and others are about to move at once from 
Estherville to Swan Lake, and with their knowledge of the county and its 
people will give added impulse to the rapid growth of the town. The coun- 
try about the village is thickly settled, and from the town site can be counted 
fifty different farm houses. There appears, therefore, no reason why the 
town should not at once be well supported by the country round, having 
much the advantages in that respect of most Western towns, in beirg lo- 
cated in a county already well settled. Swan Lake is at the geographical 
center of the county, and seems peculiarly designated as the place for the 
county seat. A movement has been projected, with every appearance of 
success, for transferring the county seat from Estherville to this tow.i, and 
the fact that leading citizens are removing thither from Estherville would 
appear to indicate that the change is imminent. We were certainly much 
ii rerested in the new town, and prophecy for it a rapid and healthful 
f:rovvth." — Pitt Cravath in Upper Des Moines, August 24, 1876. 



that the removal had heen en<iineered by "non-residents," but wliile 
these were pending the old Cedar Rapids, Burlington and Northern 
was heading toward Estherville, and the Esthervillians circulated 
a petition for an election to bring the county seat back again. 
It was claimed in this election that all the railway builders were voted 
for Estherville, but the railroad had settled the matter anyway so 
the county board announced the returns 348 for Estherville to 177 
against, and the prospects of Swan Lake faded. 

If the coming of the old "l^urlington" to Estherville had not 
been enough to focus county interest, the rivalry between the Burling- 
ton and the Milwaukee would have done it, for the Milwaukee, 
the moment the Burlington succeeded in crossing its tracks at P.m- 
metsburg, at once began paralleling the Burlington line to Estherville, 
and for some time Estherville had more railroads than it really knew 
what to do with. The story of that crossing at Emmetsburg is one 
of the real railroad stories of pioneer Iowa. The Burlington rallied 
its men and crossed one Sunday when the Milwaukee officials were 
asleep. Then the Milwaukee rallied its men and tore out the Burling- 
ton crossing, and thereafter kept a long train of freight cars standing 
at the crossing, moving them out to let trains by on its own 
tracks, but immediately putting them back again. It emled in th::; 
courts later, the Alilwaukee permitting the crossing to be made and 
paying $1,000 damages for delaying the Burlington. 

In his delightful history of Palo Alto county Dwight G. Mc- 
Carty tells the story of the rivalry of the two roads as they ran side 
by side for miles north of Emmetsburg. There was a stretch of some 
five miles before they came to a crossing at Osgood, and as both trains 
started from Emmetsburg at the same time, the race was a hot one 
to reach the crossing first. Mr. McCarty says "The train crews soon 
imbibed the spirit of bitter rivalry and it was a daily event for the 
crews to hurl anathemas at each other (in common speech, plain cuss 
words) and fight for the right of way at the crossing." The Mil- 



The Two Roads to Esthervu.i.e — "The rivalry between the two roads 
was very keen and as the trains started from Emmetsburg at the same time 
and as the roads ran parallel to each other for four or five miles, there was 
a daily race between the two to reach the Osgood crossing. The train crews 
soon imbibed the spirit of bitter rivalry as it was a daily event for the 
crews to hurl anathemas at each other and fight for the right of way at 
the crossing. The Milwaukee ran one of its engines squarely across the 
crossing and held it there, refusing to let the other train cross. The engine 
was removed finallv by court injunction." — History of Palo Alto County, by 
Dwight W. McCartv. ' 



waukee once ran an engine on the crossing and refused to permit the 
Burh'ngton to pass until a court injunction was secured. 

Swan Lake faded as rapidly as it had sprung up and today is 
like Concord and Homer, merely a reminiscence. And yet on one map 
of Iowa it appears as the commanding town of Emmett county, with 
Estherville spelled in small letters. 

Paoli 

i^i all the county seats in this Kossuth territory that once were 
and have passed, probably the one least known is Paoli, but Paoli was 
for nearly twenty years the county seat of Palo Alto county, and was 
only abandoned when the Alilwaukee came to Emmetsburg. It was 
not the railroad that settled the fate of Paoli, that had been settled 
by the settlers themselves, but it was the railroad that brought an 
official termination to the official existence of Paoli. 

Governor Carpenter of Fort Dodge was one of the commissioners 
who located Paoli, about two miles south of the present city of Em- 
etsburg. That was in January, 1859. The county at once entered 
into a contract to deed all the swamp lands in return for a brick court 
house, a school house and two county bridges. The court house fell 
down when nearly done, and was rebuilt at about half the projected 
size. But in a few years it became again unsafe and when it was 
abandoned the farmers were afraid to shelter their stock in it and a 
bee was formed and it was taken down. Nobody ever settled at 
Paoli, and the judge and the county officers were compelled to go 
two nu'les away for lodging and board. 

But the official change to Emmetsburg was not made until in 
1873, two years after the Alilwaukee had stirred the liveliest antici- 
pations of railroad connections, and three years before the Milwaukee 
actually built west from Algona, the western treminus for many 
years. A town had been platted by some Fort Dodge speculators in 
1838, on the west shore of Medium Lake, and named Emmetsburg, 

The Paoli Court House — "There was not much of Emmetsburgh then, 
if any. I do not remember seeing any. Somewliere south of Medium Lake 
we came upon an apparition in architecture. It was a temple of justice 
standing alone and silent as though it were a tenant of a world which had 
dissolved. We had heard of this peculiar spectre standing o.i the site of a 
city that was to be but never was. It was built of brick and presented quite 
a stately appearance in its outlines. The structure was roofed but had 
neither floors, doors, nor windows. Around it reigned the glory of sum- 
mer in the full tide of an August afternoon, in a solitude that seemed 
never to have been broken by human footsteps." — Mr. Lizzie B. Read, in 
Upper Des Moines, report of a trip in 1866. 



but their money ran out before they completed their plans, and al- 
though the new city was staked, the plat was never filed for record. 
When the railroad promised, this old Emmetsburg was revived and 
rechristened and liberal offers were made to the little group that had 
settled on Martin Coonan's farm west two miles on the ri\er, to move 
o\ er. 

Martin Coonan had taken the brick from the old court house 
at Paoli and built a commodious house of them on his claim, and 

WHEN PAOLI WAS ON THE MAP 




This map was published by G. W\ and C. B. Coltori & Co., i.i New 
York City in 1867. It shows Paoli as the only town in Palo Alto couiity. It 
is interesting because it shows how prolific they were in those days witii 
prospective railroads. The town of Cresco was to have been on the rail- 
road in those days rather than Irvington. It will be noticed that in Wright 
county there was an Eagle Grove over on the river, which suggests the 
origin of the name when the railroad town was to be built in the early 
80's. One of the interesting features of the map is the location of Mc- 
Knight's Point. Ed McKnight, the first settler of Humboldt, had his cabin 
clown at the forks of the two rivers, near where Dacotah City now is. But 
McKnight's Point w-as at the western edge of the county not far from 
where West Bend is now. On this map Kossuth Center is also properly 
located. 



thereafter that was the stoppinji; place for transients in the county, and 
around his home began to grow up a little settlement. For several 
years he did not plat his ground, but in the end he did plat a portion 
of it and made a beginning towards a town. It was this little settle- 
ment that was taken bodily over to the new Emmetsburg by railroad 
inducements, although Martin himself stoutly resisted. His name 
for the new town was "Stake Town," and he predicted all sorts of 
misfortune for it. But the new town made a virtue of the nickname, 
and had signs painted "On to Stake Town;" "Stake Town or Bust," 
and set them on all the leading roads. They even persuaded settlers 
to carry Stake Town signs on their wagons. In the end they had their 
way, and Air. Coonan's "old town" was moved bodily to the "new 
town" partly because he had been too slow to recognize that he must 
do something if he was to hold the town on the river. 

Contested But Not Moved 

The two county seats that were not abandoned in this Kossuth 
territory ha\e been Dacotah City in Humboldt and Forest City in 
Winnebago. Although both were seriously threatened, the court 
houses still stand on the spots originally selected by the commissioners. 
In Humboldt, the rival of Dacotah City was so near at hand that to- 
day the traveler never notices that the court house is not in 
the heart of a single incorporation. Dacotah City was on the bluffs 
on the east branch of the Des Moines just above the forks, and Mr. 
Taft built his ambitious little city of Springvale on the bottom lands 
of the west branch a mile away. Springvale coveted the official dis- 
tinction of county seat, but the court house still stands on the hill in 
Dacotah City. And the passerby tliinks it is all in the tliriving city of 
Humboldt, as in everything but name it is. 

With the ambitions of Buffalo Center to remove the countv seat 
from Forest City we need not stop here. Like the other first selec- 
tions. Forest City was located to accommodate the timber dwellers, 
and they were along the lower line of the county. But Forest City 
grew rapidly enough to hold its lead, and has never had to do any- 
thing desperate as Garner did. Probably its county seat pre-emi- 
nence will never again be threatened, although it would not be safe 
for either Garner or Forest City to risk bad court house fires. 

Forest City-Algona Mau. — In 1857 the postoffice was established at 
Forest City and in 1858 a mail route was secured from Clear Lake to Al- 
gona by way of Forest City with Josepli Hewitt (Captain Hewitt who, with 
Joseph Diclterson, pioneered Clear Lake in 1850) mail carrier. Previous to 
this the settlers were required to go to Mason City for their mail, in fact 
the first settlers got their mail at Cedar Falls." — David Secor in History of 
J!'irinfha(/o County, 1884. 



Alcona, Uncontested 

Of all the counties in the Kossuth district, Kossuth was the only 
one in which the county seat was never seriously contested. Although 
Irvington challenged Algona it was not in a direct vote on the loca- 
tion of the county seat. The contest came in the first election after 
the county was organized over naming the count}- judge, an all-pow- 
erful official of those days. If Irvington had won the county judge 
the county seat would undoubtedly have gone with him. 

Irvington really had some claims to consideration for those were 
the days when the north townships of Humboldt county were an- 
nexed to Kossuth. It may be doubted whether Irvington could 
have held the county seat after Humboldt was restored. But Al- 
gona elected Judge Call, the panic of 1857 came, the year following 
"Humboldt Township" of Kossuth county was cut off, then came 
the civil war. The promoters of Irvington gave it up, and there was 
never anybody to challenge Algona after that. 

A Real City — "In the spring of 1854 Mr. Call determined to go west 
and find a good location and build a city, not a bogus town such as is often 
laid out, but a place where we might make our home. I remember well his 
plans. He and his brother started west about the first of June. I went as 
far as Iowa City and remained until Mr. Call returned after about four 
weeks, he having found a location here. I did not come until the first of 
November. \\ hen I came there was not a house this side of Fort Dodge 
and only a few old fort buildings there.' — Mrs. Sarah Call in Upper Des 
Moines. 

The Algona-Irvington Vote — "Up to this time there had been no town 
rivalry, in fact no other town but Algona had been spoken of, and so far as 
the writer knows there had been no itching for political preferment. Specu- 
lation throughout the west was running high at that time, and Iowa had 
more than her share of it. Gold was abundant, and as is usually the case 
when money is plenty interest was high ; 3 per cent a month being con- 
sidered reasonable for short time accommodations, but 4 per cent was more 
common. I'sually from 36 to 40 per cent was charged by the year, and at 
these high figures fortunes were made by borrowing money and entering 
lands. Men who had no capital whatever could, by making judicious se- 
lections of government land, borrow money to enter it, giving the land 
itself for security, and before the end of the year more than double their 
money by selling. Land and town lots was all the talk in the older portions 
of the state. Companies were organized and rings formed for the purpose 
of building up cities and making fortunes for the sanguine stockholders. In 
this way Des Moines, Sioux City, Fort Dodge, Waterloo, Cedar Falls, 
Charles City and other large towns were started, besides hundreds of 
others that proved failures and were abandoned by those who projected 
them. Of course the largest fish took the largest bait, the smaller ones 
having to content themselves with what was left and look out sharp that 
they were not themselves made bait of. Kossuth county and 'Call's Settle- 
ment' had gained considerable notoriety and was considered a good field 
for speculative operation. Consequently, just before the August election, a 




An Early Day Toast— "Cresco, Irvingtoii and Algona— May thev like 
the red, white and blue of our national ensign, blend harmoniously together 
and thus constitute ours the banner county of all the northwest." Resr 
b}- Dr. Armstrong." — Pionrrr Press, July 6, 1861. 



5ponse 



The controversies in Kossuth g:re\v out of attempts to restore old 
Bancroft county and to create a new county seat rather than unseat 
the old one. These controversies date well back into the earlier 
years. Thus in 1870 Dr. Garfield and others of the Greenwood cen- 
ter settlers along the river were circulating the rumor that the north 
half of the county was to be taxed not only to build an expensive 
court house in Algona, but to make a substantial contribution to Al- 
gona college. No particular objection was offered in those days to 
restoring Bancroft county, but the prime movers made the mis- 
take of incorporating as Crocker county, and a new coimty could not 
be created without more territory than old Bancroft had. Without 
question old Bancroft could have been restored, for the constitution 
of 1857 made an exception in favor of the counties on the Minnesota 
border from Worth west. Perhaps Bancroft could be restored to- 
day, if the legislature would authorize it. But Crocker county as a 
new county was taken from the map by order of the supreme court, 
and every subsequent attempt to divide the county has met with hos- 
tility, until today the automobile and telephone have eliminated 
county distances and the location of the ct)unty seat is no longer a 
paramount consideration. 

company was formed with headquarters at Webster City for the purpose 
of capturing the offices, getting the county seat and building a rival town. 
The active men in the company were George and Cyrus Smith, Kendall 
Young and L. L. Treat, all good and discreet men with plenty of capital 
to back them. They came quietly into the settlement, selected their town site 
at Irvington, named their town Irvington, for Irving Clarke, son of \V. G. 
Clarke (the first white child born in the county), thus securing the friend- 
ship of the family, and giving them five votes, made up their ticket by giv- 
ing the best offices to men who might otherwise go with Algona, agreed to 
divide their lots liberally with those who worked with them, and as the 
writer was afterwards told by one of the parties, received pledges from 
four more than a majority of all the voters of the county to vote the Irv- 
ington ticket. With the assurance of success they retired leaving the 
election in the hands of the people. So quietly was this work done that the 
Algona party were taken by surprise. They had not expected a contest 
and had made no preparation for it. A number of voters were out of the 
county, but feeling that the prestige of our town depended upon our electing 
an Algona ticket every exertion was made to win the election. One man 
(Jacob Cummins) who had started for Cedar Falls was overtaken sixty 
miles away and brought back to vote. The writer spent two days in what 
is now Humboldt county chasing after voters who were out on the prairie 
elk hunting and finally brought in two, Sol Hand and Mailon Miner. The 
judges of election were sworn by John F. Duncombe, who came up from 
Fort Dodge on purpose. The election was hotly contested and won by the 
Algona party by a few votes. The officers elected were: Judge, Asa C. 
Call; county clerk, Robert Cogley; treasurer and recorder, J. W. Moore; 
county surveyor, Lewis H. Smith. The vote was canvassed at Homer, the 
county seat of Webster county. The Irvington company built a sawmill at 
that place and got it running early in the summer. Judge Call started liis 
mill a few weeks later.'' — Ambrose A. Call in Upper Des Moines, July 14, 
1875. 



But Algona, even if uncontested, was not to escape the uncertain- 
ties of the railroad. Algona had been platted on one of the most sightly 
bluffs on the Upper Des Moines, in a horseshoe bend that to this day 
gives it a most distinguished setting. But the very sightliness of the 
bluffs made railroad approach almost impossible. Even in later j^ears 
when the Northwestern was ordering its branch line to Fox Lake it 
gave up an Algona connection because of the difficulty of crossing 
the river at a proper grade. 

The Milwaukee engineers, when they came in 1869, surve^'ed 
two routes through the city, one to the southwest hitting the river 
bluffs not far from the old college site and crossing the river near the 
present Call bridge, reaching the western prairies through the gorge 
the wagon road now runs through. This would have put the depot 
grounds somewhere near the Stacey nursery. The other route was 
along the northern bluffs of the river where the road now runs, and 
this was the one the engineers finally decided upon, and even this 
presents one of the most difficult grades on the whole division. Tak- 
ing the northern route forced the depot more than a mile out from 
the old town, and in effect set up a new and rival town. Important 
buildings were built at the depot town, and for a time feeling ran 




ORIGINAL PLAT OF ALGONA 



hi^h. But the lirasshoppers finally settled the controversy, and Al- 
gona is still on the river bluffs where the original plat was surveyed. 

For nearly four years there was nothing to bring to the depot 
for shipment, and as the inclination of the old settlers was to stick 
by the old town, what business there was was done in the old town. 
Long before the grasshopper devastation was over the fate of the 
depot town was settled, and one by one the merchants came back to 
the old town, and one by one the more important buildings were also 
mo\ed. The frame hotel that toda^' stands north of the public square 
on the site of the old Russell house was built originally just south of 
the Milwaukee depot and was for several years by far the most pre- 
tentious hotel west of Alason City. In the subsequent years the 
diagonal road that connects the depot and the old town has gradually 
taken on the appearance of a city street, and today the traveller who 
is used to city distances is not unduly conscious of the fact that the 
depot is well out. But for the grasshopper invasion Algona would, 
without any question, have moved to the depot as every other town 
in the state was forced to do. What happened to Lyons when the 
railroad bridge was built at Clinton and to Boonesboro when the 
tlepot was erected at Boone, would unquestionably have happened to 
Algona. 

Before the Northwestern built its line from Eagle Grove to El- 



Irvington's Prospects — "After breakfast I started (from Fort Dodge) 
for Algona on foot, crossed the Des Monies I think near where the mill 
now stands, getting a man who was taking his goods and wagon over in a 
canoe, expecting to swim his horses, to put me Eicross ; came on and crossed 
the west fork at Miller's, came to Dakota, where I found one log cabin, 
and came to Washington Hand's and stayed over night. The next morning, 
April 19, crossed the east fork of the river, passed a steam mill, or part of 
one, coming to Irvington, and took dinner at Mr. Wright's. The first meal 
of victuals that I ate in what is now Kossuth county. Mr. Wright had been 
to Indiana, and had reached home a short time before I arrived there. I 
formed a very pleasant acquaintance with him and his family, which has 
continued to this day. He always gave me the same cordial greeting, and 
when, a short time since, I learned of his death, I felt that I had lost a 
friend. He has gone to his rest; / a little longer iva'it. Irvington then con- 
sisted of one log cabin, and expected to be a formidable rival of Algona, 
in contending for the county seat an anticipation which will not seem so 
wild when we consider that at that time Kossuth county embraced the two 
northern tiers of townships in what had once been and is now Humboldt 
county, and probably more than half the inhabitants in the county lived 
south of Irvington. Calling on all the families on the road from Irvington 
here, I arrived about 3 o'clock p. m., and found men scattered about, sur- 
veying the town site. I inquired of the first man I found for Lewis H. 
Smith, and easily recognized him from his red shirt and surveyor's instru- 
ments. Mr. Moore's house, which then stood not far from where Mr. 
\'aughn's is now, was also pointed out to me, and as I was to pass it, I 
thought I would leave mv satchel and overcoat. I expected to find a good, 



more, Al(2;ona had become important enough to command the rail- 
road, and a difficult river crossing was made in order to bring the 
Northwestern within the Milwaukee zone. Because the old Iowa 
Central was projected only to Algona, the Hampton-Algona branch 
was readily built. But when the northwest extension is made, if 
ever, the problem of crossing the river will be one for the engineers. 

After these nearly seventy years when scenic routes are at- 
tracting automobile tourists, Algona sits on the bluffs in a beauty of 
location that marks it one of most unusual of the county seats. And 
the fact that it is barely skirted by the railroads, instead of proving to 
its disadvantage, frees it from many of the annoyances and un- 
pleasantnesses. Fringed with native timber to the north, with native 
timber barely half a mile away to the south, and native timber again 
to the west, all from seventy-five to one hundred feet above the river 
as it makes the bend, at one of the highest points on the great water 
shed, which the Indians called "Mini Akapan Kaduza" (where the 
water runs both ways), Algona may well appreciate the "time and 
chance" of the July day in far off 1854 when Asa C. and Ambrose A. 
Call, walking up from the King Creek where they had camped, came 
to this bluff, and said to each other, "we will build our city here." 

In the light of what has happened already in the nearly seventy 
years, and taking account of what is happening now, it would be 
venturesome to make any sort of guess for the next seventy years in 

smart looking, youngly woman, and perhaps one or two bright, rosv faced 
children. I accordingly knocked at the door, but no response; knocked again 
with the same result. Concluded that Mrs. Moore might be out shopping, 
or making calls, as is customary with some women on pleasant afternoons, 
but thought if the door was not locked I would just look in and leave my 
traps, as thev were somewhat burdensome. I therefore opened the door 
very cautiously, but one glance was sufficient to convince that no woman 
lived there. So I went and showed my letter to Mr. Smith, and while talk- 
ing to him, Judge Call came along and went into the house, and I went in 
and introduced myself to him, told him my business, and he invited me 
home with him, and I stayed to tea, and that was the first meal that I ate 
in Algona." — Father Taylor in Upper Des Moines, March 10, 1875. 

Division of Our County — "Our friends in the northern part of Kos- 
suth are agitating the question of division at no very distant period. For 
our own part we are quite willing the division should take place at any 
time when the majority of the voters in old Bancroft shall seek it. But we 
do seriously object to the false representations made use of by one man in 
Seneca, ami used as a strong argument in favor of separation. He is loudly 
asserting that in addition to a costly court liouse soon to be built, that Kos- 
suth county is to be taxed over one hundred thousand dollars for the build- 
ing of the Northwestern College at Algona. We are surprised that he 
sliould find a single individual capable of believing so stupid a falsehood. 
But what better could we expect from the only "cop" in the county — the fel- 
low who is reported to have said he was glad of it, when Abraham Lincoln 
was murdered?" — Upper Des Moines, March 2, 1870. 



the Des Moines and Mississippi valleys. Hut hairing devastation 
like that of war, both these valleys will be veritable gardens, with 
cities and towns more like world expositions than like anything we 
know\ Among them all there will not be one more beautifully sur- 
rounded and circumstanced than this pioneer in the \ast region north 
of P\)rt Uodge and west of Clear Lake. 

Freedom From Frost — "Our special correspondent, writing from Algoiia, 
tiie county seat, says: 'There is one point to wiiich I wish to call your spe- 
cial attention. This part of the state is an isolated summit, surrounded on 
all sides by land from 300 to 600 feet lower, and the consequence is we 
have almost perfect immunity from frost in the growing seasons. This is 
proved by careful observations during ten years. I was absent when the 
great frost of August 1863, swept over the western states. I was thought 
demented when I told my friends east that our section had escaped. The 
next week I received a copy of the Algona Press which contained this 
paragraph: "Dr. McCoy has just returned from Des Moines and reports a 
frost at that place. At Fort Dodge it was confined to the river bottoms. We 
saw nothing of it here." I came home and found our corn and all other 
crops sound. It is always so." — Description of loica, by Wm. Doane Wil- 
son, Des Moines, 1865. 

A Railroad Prospect — In this county are two villages of importance, 
besides two or three "paper towns." Aigona, the county seat, is quite a 
pretty place of about one hundred and fifty inhabitants. It has a very hand- 
some townsite in the bend of the east fork of the Des Moines, and at sorne 
day not far distant, will be a point of importance. Irvington, five or six 
miles south, is a thriving little town, not so large as the county seat, but still 
a nucleus around which will gather a considerable village, when the re- 
sources of Kossuth county are properly developed, and its population has \n- 
creased from five hundred to ten or fifteen thousand. — Railroad Review, 
quoted in the Algona Pioneer Press, April 13, 1861. 



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Irvin^ton 

We miiiht profitably speculate on the possibilities if the Indian 
scare and the mone}- panic of 1857 had not put a wet blanket on the 
hopes of Irvington. The young men who platted and promoted 
Irvington were of the ambitious, energetic, courageous sort and their 
subsequent success in Webster City insures that Irvington would have 
been a real tow^n. But that is one of the minor "ifs" of history. Not 
a stick or stone is to be found today to hint that a town was ever 
there. The railroad town that bears the name stands further south. 

Just how energetic they were wc may judge from the fact that 
Irvington was ahead of Algona to be platted and officially filed for 
record. In their order the first towns came: 

Irvington, filed for record September 27, 1856. by George Smith, 
L. L. Treat and Kendall Young. 

Algona filed December 2, 1856, by Asa C. Call. 

Ashuelot filed July 30, 1858, by George Brizee. 

Cresco filed September, 1858, by Henry Kellogg. 

Mr. Treat's mill — the sawmill was one of the first things every- 
where — was in place some weeks before the Call mill. The first two 
bridges ordered in the county were at the Treat mill and at the Call 

The First Deed — "The first deed upon record in Kossuth county is 
that of the town plat of Irvington and bears date of September 19, 1856, 
and is signed by George Smith, Lyman L. Treat and Kendall Young. The 
deed is acknowledged by Lewis H. Smith, a notary public in and for said 
county and by order of Asa C. Call, county judge, was filed for record on 
the 27th day of September, 1856 at 9 o'clock A. NL by Chauncy Tavlor, 
deput}- recorder." — History of Kossuth County, 1884. 

Kendall Young — "Mr. Young was a quiet man in those days, very re- 
liable and highly respected by everybody. He did not remain long and in 
1859 returned to Webster City. Algona got the start of Irvington and he 
saw no prospect of any great future for his town. At Webster City he 
established a bank and has since become very wealthy. Mr. Treat also re- 
turned to Webster City, where he is a wealthy merchant." — Obituary in 
The Upper Des Moines, July 8, 1896. 

The Old Town — "This old town lay north and east of the present 
station. It had a public ha!!, a fine sawmill and a store. J. C. Heckart at 
one time had a photo-gal lerv, and A. M. Jolmson was village blacksmitli.' 
Lyman Treat started the store and built one building that still stands, the 
only mark left of the old town. He was the last of the trio to leave. He 
sold to Dr. Armstrong in 1861. The mill the firm bought in was bought 
later by Lewis H. Smith and E. N. Weaver and brought to Algona. It was 
located where Cjuv Grove now lives and was later sold to J. E. Blackford, 
who for many years made the lumber still to be founil in tlie pioneer build- 
ings."— L'/)/)//- Des Moines, July 8, 1896. 



Algona, May 25lb, 1301. 



JUST RECEIVED 
Per the Oxen Express Company, 

AT IR VINOTON, IOWA, 

Kow Spring and Summer Dry Goods 

BOOTS A D SUOEtS. 
READY MADE CLOTIIiya, 

GROCEBIE, CROCKERY, 

AMD 



TIN WARE. 



All of wbicb will 1)9 f'AA hi prices to 
lomparowit'.j ih< limf^. 

L. L. TREAT 
ADVERTISEMENT IN ALGONA PIONEER PRESS 



mill, the Hrst the bridge across the Des Moines at Irvinj^ton sub- 
stantially where it is to this day, and the other the Blackford bridge, 
the Call mill standing just at the south point of the Blackford o;rove. 

Amon<2; the men who were interested was Charles Aldrich, so long 
the curator of the state historical collection. He had founded the 
Hamilton Freeman at Webster Cit\ in 1837, and was one of the 
early visitors to the new town, where he joined with his neighbors 
in a town lot venture. As the Algona beginners had come by way 
of Fort Dodge and consulted with Major Williams, and as Major 
Williams had started the first store in Algona in 1855, Fort Dodge 
interest seems to have centered in Algona, evidenced in the newspaper 
controversy that sprang up with some heat between the Fort Dodge 
Sentinel and the Freeman over the rival merits of the two towns. It 
would be interesting again to speculate on the possibilities if Algona 
had gone ahead as the protege of Fort Dodge and Irvington as the 
protege of Webster City. Although Fort Dodge and Webster Citv 



The Towx Hall — "The old town hall of Irvington around whose hal- 
lowed walls cluster so many pleasing associations of bve-gone davs, was 
built in 1857. Being in want of a suitable public place for public meetings, 
a joint stock subscription was raised and with the proceeds the edifice was 
built. This was opened with a dance and as that was the principal en- 
joyment of the period, many an old settler tells with glee how the minister 
who held forth to them had to hurry his sermon that the young folks might 
begin their dance. The building was for many years the general rendezvous 
for the whole township, and stood until 1881 when having become decrepit 
with age it tumbled to the ground." — History of Kossuth County, 1884. 

The Irvington Brass Band — "The Irvington Juvenile band was or- 
ganized by the young people in 1868, and was the first cornet band in the 
countv. Following is the list of organizers so far as can be gathered from 
the memories of those who organized it: B. F. Reed, leader; J. O. Holden, 
A. T. Reed, C. B. Holden, E. P. Crockett, Rolla Bush, Fulton Fill, J. W. 
Green and George Fisher. The band survived for several years but its 
members drifted away, and the organization dissolved." — History of Kos- 
suth County, 1884. 

Road From Irvington to Clear Lake — "Hewitt, Captain Hewitt he was 
called, was well known to all Kossuth pioneers. In 1857 he moved from 
Clear Lake to the then flourishing town of Irvington, living two years in 
a house between Dr. Armstrong's and the Kinsey Carlon farm, which burned 
later, and then a year or more south of the creek on tl" Sample farm. He 
owned a house in Algona where Dr. Stull's house now is, part, we believe, 
of the present residence. He was a stage driver in those days, from Irving- 
ton to Clear Lake, a shrewd and rather popular old man. His route lay 
north bv Purcell's Point and so oflf east bv where Sexton is now to near 
Forest Citv and then down to the lake. Nothing but Bailey's web footed 
bulls could stand on Hancock soil in those days, which caused the wide de- 
tour in the old stage route. But Irvington, being Algona's chief competitor, 
the detour did not come as far west as the present metropolis, which had to 
be satisfied with a stub. Hewitt moved east again to the lake in 1860 or 
1861." ("Hewitt died at Clear Lake about 1862 or 1863 and was buried m 
the lake."— Britt Tribune.) — {'/>/><';■ Des Moines, 1896. 




KENDALL YOUNG 

Mr. Young was a Maine man by birth, Mr. Treat a New Yorker of 
Vermont parentage. The\' met first in Wisconsin, went from there to Rock- 
ford, 111., and from there to Albia, Iowa, where they had a store. When 
the northern Iowa lands were thrown upon the market they made a prospect- 
ing tour, and liking the looks they decided to build a town. B. C. Maso;i, 
who has lived in Webster City since 1856, and who was associated witli 
both Young and Treat, writes: "Returning to Albia they packed their 
goods, bought a sawmill ar.d taking W. (Bing) Howard with them, started 
for Kossuth where they opened up their store in a log cabin, erected their 
sawmill, and started to work. Mr. Young, on account of his ability to file 
and set a saw, was head sawyer while Mr. Treat looked after tlie store. 
Settlers were coming in fast over a staked trail Young and Treat had marked 
by erecting poles every few miles from the Dubuque and Sioux City trail." 
But the speed of Algona, the Indian scare of 1857 and the money panic 
that same year soon put an end to Mr. Young's hopes and he moved to 
Webster City where he opened a store and later became a banker. He 
died in 1896 leaving his estate of $500,000 (Mr. Mason savs it is now 
$1,000,000) to found a public library. At the time of his death The Upper 
Des Moines said of him: "Mr. Young was a quiet man in those Irvington 
days, very reliable and highly respected by everybody.'' Mr. Mason tells 
this storv of Mr. Young: "I remember of his tellirg of an Indian scare 
while they were at Irvington. A trapper had come in with the word that 
the Indians were headed for the settlement. The people were gathered in 
the school house waiting in great suspense. Finally a camp fire was seen. 
Mr. Young, unable to stand the strain any longer, decided to reconnoiter. 
Upon getting near enough to the camp fire he found that it was the fire of 
two trappers on their wav to Fort Dodge. Tins incident shows the sort of 
courage Mr. 'S'oung had and he had it until death." 



had conspired to dispossess old Homer, their partnership was of short 
duration and e\en in 1837 the seeds of rivalry had sprouted. 

The outstanding features of old Irvin^^ton were the Treat saw- 
mill, the Kendall Young log cabin that served as hotel, the town hall, 
and the old stockade. The Irvington brass band did not come until 
later, although the old town hall was standing, and Dr. Armstrong 
still kept the store. But it was out of that first Irvington movement 
that the suggestion of a band materialized, and such practicing as the 
band did was done mainly in the old town hall. Addison Fisher, a 
dry humorist who came to old Cresco in 1856 and whose name is 
commemorated by the Fisher river bridge, heard the Irvington band 
pla\ at the Cresco Fourth of July celebration, and always contended 
that he recognized "Yankee Doodle" because he could follow the 
tune on the bass drum. The band came up for the dedication of the 
new Algona school house (the Grand Army hall), and Samuel Reed, 
just as the opening number was about to be played, arose and sug- 
gested that the ushers open the windows as he had heard that music 
would shatter glass. 1 he boys marched to their own time, and played 

Charles Aldrich Championed Irvington — "Some curious chapters of 
pioneer history of the famous county seat war between Algona and Irving- 
ton are found in the files of the old Jt'fbster City Freeman. Irvington was 
'promoted' by Webster Cityites, the late Kendall Young, whose magnificent 
gift of his whole estate for a public library will long keep his memory 
green, at their head. Charles Aldrich, now curator of the Iowa historical 
department, was editor of the Freeman and owner of some Irvington lots. 
He visited the ambitious town once and gave it a write up, back in the 
good days of '57, and for months saw that Irvington did not lack champion- 
ship. This ownership of the lots caused the Fort Dodge Sentinel, the only 
other 1857 newspaper in these parts, to accuse Mr. Aldrich of casting 
flings at Algona. It arose in this way. Mr. A. S. White, editor of the Senti- 
nel, visited Algona to attend a democratic convention, and when we went 
home he wrote a complimentary notice in which he said: 'Algona is sit- 
uated directly north of Fort Dodge, 40 miles, on the east branch of the Des 
Moines. It contains about 50 or 60 houses and something like 400 inhabi- 
tants.' There can be no doubt that he 'saw double,' at least, on this estimate, 
and Editor Aldrich came back with the following: 'Reference was made 
to the fact that certain democrats had lost a bottle of schnapps. We allude 
to it merely for the purpose of saying that our friend White of the Sentinel 
is not the feller. It was charged upon him, doubtless, from the fact that 
he saw so many houses at Algona when he was up there holding his con- 
ventio:^." The Freeman also charged some skulduggery in the matter of 
holding the convention at Algona, for in the same paper was this item: 
'Who held a convention at Algona for the democracy on the 15th inst., when 
the un-meddled-with countv convention was called at Irvington on the 
I5th? Let's ha^e a full historv of the affair. What became of the Irving- 
ton convention?' It was in replv to this that the Sentinel charges the Free- 
man with trying to belittle Algona. to which the Freeman, Oct. 8, 1857, re- 
plied: 'The Sentinel accuses us of trying to create prejudice against Al- 
gona. This is another of our bilious little neighbor's lies, as wide of the 
truth as his storv about the houses and inhabitants. The people of Algona 
did not ask for that puff and they were all completely disgusted with it. He 




L. L. TREAT 

Mr. Treat was more intimately associated with Kossuth history than 
Mr. Young, because he remained lo.ger, a;;d was elected county treasurer. 
His daughter writes that like so many of the pioneers he left his New York 
home with an older brother when he was twelve years old. He frequently 
told her that he started with "a hunk of corn bread and a dime." Here 
is a curious item from the Pioneer Press of September 7, 1861 : 

"The account of L. L. Treat calling for $50.00 for services as county 
treasurer for the quarter ending June 30th, 1861, was now presented and 
sworn to by Lewis H. Smith, deputy treasurer and attorney for L. L. Treat, 
treasurer, which account was duly audited, allowed, and a warrant ordered 
to issue to him for the same." 

Mr. Treat had been elected over his rival merchant of Algona, H. F. 
Watson, in 1859, by a vote of 54 to 50. 

Another news item of that same year refers to his advertisement (a 
copy appears on another page) and adds: 

"We would remind the public that L. L. Treat will soon have his sup- 
ply of spring and summer goods, his teams are on the road between Cedar 
Falls and Irvington. Give him a call, and you will be well paid for your 
trouble." 

Mr. Treat seemed to outlive the panic of 1857 and the Indian scare, but 
the civil war coming on satisfied him that Irvington's days were numbered. 
He sold his store to J. R. Armstrong, who continued as merchant for many 
years after old Irvington was gone, and moved to Webster City where he 
also became a merchant. He died September 16, 1915, leaving an estate 
valued at $350,000. One of his old time friends says he could never be 
persuaded to say much about his early experiences, but he did speak once 
of his Irvington adventure as "one hell of an enterprise." 

Mr. Treat's face, like that of Mr. Young, shows the sort of man he 
was, clean cut, vigorous, effective. Kossuth would have witnessed a battle 
royal if Irvington had gotten started, and the Algona pioneers had these 
Irvington leaders for permanent neighbors. 



to their own tune. If there was not much harmony there was plenty 
of noise, and everybody was independent of e\'erybody else, as be- 
came the frontier. 

The Treat mill stood by the river for some ten years when Lewis 
H. Smith and E. N. Weaver bought it and brought it up to Algona. 
The Call mill had burned and as the lumber of those days was hardy 
oak and maple, and elm, if one did not care for the twists and cracks, 
a mill was properly described as a necessity. For many years the 
old mill stood in the ravine west of what was the old St. John place, 
and Mr. Blackford was the sawyer. Then it too, burned, and the 
railroad coming in began to bring Wisconsin pine, and building with 
native lumber, even for cribs and barns, slackened. But there are yet 
buildings on the town site that have the old hewed timbers and the 
home sawed oak sheathings of the early days. One room of the first 
frame home ever built in Algona is still as it was built, part of the 
David Mitchell home. 

\Vhate\er of romance lingers about old Irvington is associated 

assigns as a reason that we own two outside lots in Irvington, etc' 1o 
which the Frecma/r adds that if the Sentinel owned the lots they would be 
promptly attached for debt. Mr. Aldrich visited Irvington in September, 
1857. He devotes two columns to the town in the Freeman of Sept. lU. 
They contain much valuable history especially of the old Indian fort, and 
many curious reminders of the hopes and ambitions of the pioneer days. 
But prior to this visit he had published various items from others, one 
from a prospector for the Dubuque and Pacific railway, which was to be 
all through this country before anyone knew it. In August the Freeman 
quoted him as follows: 'He also speaks highly of the new and beautiful 
town of Irvington. Several new buildings have been erected the present 
season and many more are in process of erection. He informs us that Judge 
Call, the original proprietor of Algona, has lately become interested in a 
tract of land joining Irvington, and has platted it as an addition to that 
town. He is building a fine residence upon the land.' Mr. Aldrich, when 
he came up in the most delightful of all our seasons, was delighted with the 
town, etc., as thousands have been since, for there is no more beautiful 
spot in Iowa. 'The site of Irvington,' he says, 'is one of the most beautiful 
we have ever seen. Irvington overlooks a greater extent of country than 
any point we have yet seen in the state.' Then follow a lot of curious sug- 
gestions: 'A mail route has been established from Fort Dodge to Mankato 
and one to Clear Lake, both via Irvington. George Smith is postmaster. 
Irvington, no doubt, has better railway facilities than any other point in 
that vicinity. It is situated most admirably for a crossing from east to 
west and in direct line of a north and south road, which must be built ere 
long.' Ere long proved to be 25 years. 'Sixty farms have been commenced 
within two and a half miles of town, and over 2,000 acres of sod have been 
turned over this season.' 

"Following are the chief paragraphs of Mr. Aldrich's report: 'The 
town site was claimed in August, 1855, bv Messrs. K. Young, George Smith, 
Cyrus Smith and L. L. Treat, under the firm name of K. Young & Co. Im- 
provements were made the following spring, and in July, 1856. it was finally 
entered. There are now upon the town plat 12 dwelling houses and several 



with the town hall and stockade. The stockade was built there as at 
Algona to protect the settlers against the Indians, after the massacre 
at the lakes. The Indians had scampered to the Dakotas as fast as 
the}' could go, and there were never but a handful of them. But the 
settlers could not know that and no rumor ever grew as the Indian 
rumors did in those days when mails were infrequent and there were 
no telegraphs. The planks were sawed at the Treat mill and the 
stockade was built with some thought to permanency. In fact it would 
be there today if the pioneers had not one by one taken the planks for 
other uses, and the land had not become too valuable for farming. 
Nearly every settlement in Northern Iowa had a stockade in those 
days, and not a day passed when the scattered settlers were not ready 
to congregate and fight. It is easy to understand this when we con- 
sider that the Sioux uprising in Minnesota did not come uptil 1862 
and Kossuth was the border county directly south of New Ulm. Un- 
til the Sioux were definitely removed beyond the Missouri, following 
that uprising, the northern counties never felt quite secure, although in 
the five years after the Spirit Lake massacre nothing occurred to war- 
rant serious alarm. For a period of six or eight \ears the new settle- 
others are in process of building; also a good hotel, kept by A. D. Wheeler. 
The proprietors have erected a fine sawmill, which manufactures, on an 
average, 3,000 feet of lumber a day. They also manufacture lath and 
shingles. There is but one store, which is kept by Mr. R. Parmenter, the 
pioneer merchant. There are likewise a carpenter and furniture shop and 
a blacksmith's shop, all carried on by good mechanics. One principal ob- 
ject of interest is the fort, fronting the public square, which was built dur- 
ing the Indian disturbance last spring. The inhabitants gallantly resolved 
to stand their ground if the Indians made a descent upon the Des Moines 
settlements, and accordingly combined their energies and constructed a fort. 
It is built in a square form with projecting bastions at the angles so that 
every portion of the outside can be guarded from within. The material 
used in building is of oak and elm planks, 14 to 16 feet in length, four inches 
thick and perfectly bullet proof. These are set into the ground two feet, 
firmly pinned together at the top, and inside battened with heavy slabs. 
Portholes for shooting at the foe were made about eight feet from the 
ground and a platform erected all around the inside upon which the marks- 
men were to stand when firing. It was their intention to erect a house in- 
side the fort, but the Indian excitement died away and the labor upon the 
fort terminated with the absence of the supposed danger. The fort stands 
there for the protection against any further incursions of the savages. It 
has been suggested that the name of the village be changed to Fort Irving- 
ton, an appropriate and euphonious name, and this will doubtless be done 
at tlie next session of the legislature.' 

"In the issue of Nov. 12, 1857, the Freeman has one further reference t(j 
tiie town: 'An unprincipled fellow recently went to Irvington and jumped 
a claim belonging to an honest, hard working actual settler. "The Irvington 
boys" — as generous a set of fellows as ever broke bread — at once held a 
meeting at whicli they resolved to apply the celebrated remedies of Dr. Tar 
.Hid Prof. Feather to the morally diseased claim jumper. The latter, how- 
ever, left ill a hurry, the mere odor of these medicaments lia\ing perfectly 
cured him."" — The L'pper Des Moi/irs, Dec. 2, 1S96. 



nients Ihed in more or less consciousness of the Iiulian. This was not 
calculated to encoura<ie immijzration nor to hold the timid who had 
already immigrated. 

But the fondest memories of old Irv'ington linger about the town 
hall, which stood for many years after the town was abandoned and 
which sheltered in its time meetings of memorable interest. B. F. 
Reed, who was one of the pioneers himself, coming witli his father 
as a boy of ten in the very earliest days, has told the story of the tow n 
hall in his valuable history. School was taught there, visiting preach- 
ers preached there, lectures, dances, town meetings, band practice, it 
was the shelter for them all. I'he old town hall stood until it fell 
of its own decay, buildings were not built then with so much thought 
for durability, the supply of neither lumber nor of hardware sug- 
gested using more than was absolutely necessary. For many years 
it stood on the eminence, a solitary monument, for all the other build- 
ing had been torn down or removed. After it too was gone Dr. Arm- 
strong's store alone remained, down much nearer the new town, and 
that still remains, put to humbler farm uses. 

In the bO's when the old town hall was still in use Father Tajdor 
WJ!S county superintendent and lie visited the Irvington schools. 
Father Ta\lor was an imusually fearless man in the performance of 

The Stockade — "The settlers living in the southern end of the couniv 
also built a stockade at Irvington. This was built of 2-inch oak pank, 
doubled, the end set in a trench. This stockade was about fifty feet square, 
with port holes and bastions. The supposition was that the building of 
these stockades would give to the settlers a feeling of security, and keep 
many in the country who otherwise would leave, and in case of a threat- 
ened attack upon the settlement, could be readily occupied and easily de- 
fended bv the settlers.'' — Ambrose A. Call in Upper Des Moines, 1875. 

The Official Record 

Grantor, Asa C. Call, countv judge. Book A, Page 1. Filed Sept. 27, 
1856. Description, S. E. 1-4 and "S. 1-2 N. E. 30, 95, 28, as town of Irvington. 

Grantor, Asa C. Call, countv judge. Consideration, $1. Quit claim deed 
filed Oct. 27, 1856. To William B. Howard, lot 5, block 15; to William 
Moore, lot 2, block 14; to Kendall Young, all town except blocks 16 and 17 
and above; to J. G. Green, lot 3, block 17; to George Smith, block 17. 

Grantor, Kendall Young. Book A, Page 47. Consideration, $100. 
Grantee, Calvin Taft. Filed Mav 4, 1857. Lots 2 and 5, block 31, and lots 
1, 2, 3, block 32. 

Cuantor, Kendall Young. Book A, Page 66. Consideration, $500. 
George A. Lowe. Filed June 20, 1857. Description, blocks 22, 38, 52 and 
54. 

Grantor, Kendall Young. Book A. Page 69. Consideration, $300. 
Grantee, Jerome Bleekman. Filed July 1, 1857. Description, lots 1, 2, 3, 
4, 5, 6, block 18; lots 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, block 5. 

Grantor, J. R. Armstrong. Book 40, Page 601. Vacation filed Oct. 19, 
1901. Description, Town of Irvington. 



what he looked upon as his duty. We can get a hint of the situation 
when we find him beginning his report with such a lemark as this: 

"I approach subdistrict No. 3 uitli a great deal of hesitation, lest 
in attempting to navigate between Scylla and Charybdis, I both get 
dashed upon the rocks on the one hand, and engulfed in the whirl- 
pool on the other. Suffice it to say that within less than two years 
they have had seven teachers, and report says about as many mana- 
gers as there are men, women and children in the subdistrict." 

Then turning to the schools as he found them he reports: 

"This summer I found twenty bright eyed intelligent looking 
scholars, under the instruction of a well qualified, efficient teacher, 
and if the parents will encourage the teacher in her arduous labors, 
and conclude that it is possible, where the teacher and scholars dif- 
fer, the teacher may be right and the scholars wrong, I hope they 
may have a profitable school. The remark of Solomon, that 'in the 




W. B. HOWARD 

Mr. Howard, while not directly interested in the Irvington promotion, 
was the third man of the group who came in to build the new town. Mr. 
Young took the sawmill, Mr. Treat the store, and Mr. Howard the black- 
smith shop. These were the three essential things for a new town. The 
two joint proprietors in the town site, Cieorge and Cyrus Smith, never be- 
came actively identified personally. IV] r. Howard's house was one of the 
corner buildings. Mr. Howard went to Webster City with the others and 
opened a hardware store. He died some years ago, also having made a 
substantial success in business. Mr. Howard left Irvington in 1858. 



multitude of counsellors there is safety,' does not apply to all times 
and circiunstances." 

Father Taylor did not find the school houses of the time very 
promising. He says: 

"I believe they were all orijj;inally claim houses, built on pre-emp- 
tions and moved to their present respective localities, and fitted up 
for temporary use, and do not claim to be very comfortable, conven- 
ient or elegant." 

Considering that Father Taylor himself lived in a \o^ house at 
that time, June, 18b7, and had endured the hardships of pioneer life, 
it Is easy to understand that this criticism meant more than tliat 
school houses were uncomfortable in the modern sense, and the 
schools were disorderly in the modern sense. But this is part of the 
story of the later Irvington. The promoters of the old town had all 
gone, and the old town had fallen already into decay. 

Hauling From Iowa City — "At the start supplies for the store had to 
be carried in wagons from Iowa City, that being the nearest railroad sta- 
tion. Kossuth county then had only about 400 inhabitants. The lands did 
not find buyers and the expected settlers did not arrive. In the spring of 
1857 the people were wildly excited by the Spirit Lake massacre and many 
settlers fled the county. The panic of 1857 came on soon after and there 
was little business to transact, times were hard and trade consisted largely 
of barter. After living a couple of years at Irvington the project of build- 
ing a town was abandoned by Mr. Young." — Kendall Young, by M. J. Covil. 

The Treat Store — "The first merchant of the village was Lyman L. 
Treat who opened a general merchandise store in the fall of 1856. This 
he continued to operate until about 1861, when he disposed of his stock 
and business to J. A. Armstrong who was the merchant until 1878, when he 
closed out the stock and discontinued the store.'' — Histury of Kossuth County, 
1884. 

Protracted Meeting — "Rev. J. H. Todd will hold meetings at the Town 
Hall in Irvington, every evening this week, and perhaps in the afternoon a 
part of the time. Brother Todd has wrought a good work in Algona, and 
we sincerely hope his efforts will be blessed for good at Irvington and all 
other places wherever the work of the ministry may call him." — Upper Des 
Mo'inrs, Februar\- 17, 1869. 



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Ashuelot 

The story of Ashuelot is confined largely to the official records. 
There was a plat, and a few cabins were built just as tlie western 
boom was breaking. As hard times came whatever prospect there had 
been for settlement was gone, and the town sank back into the wilder- 
ness. Thirty years later W. H. Nycum, at considerable trouble, got 
the titles to the town lots together and had the town site vacated, 
and since then for another thirty years Ashuelot has been lost in the 
wide sweep of the prairies. In the later fifties it was announced 
that the stages to Blue Earth would stop for lunch at Ashuelot. If 
they ever did stop it was at one of the cabins and then only oc- 
cassionally. 

The promoter of Ashuelot was George W. Brizee, ulio came to 
Algona from Fort Dodge. He represented himself as a member of 
the Chicago city council, but inquiry at the city clerk's office elicits 
the information that nobody by the name of Brizee appears on the 
official rolls. In the Centennial History of Fort Dodge which he edited 
in 1876 he gives a brief sketch of himself in which he says nothing of 
aldermanic honors. It is easy to judge the sort of man he was from 
his own account of himself: 

George W. Brizee was born at Catskill, Greene county, New York. Be- 
ing unmarried, we believe we will not give the date. We attended a select 
school, kept by R. L. Ross, for many years in our native town; then attended 
an academy in Salem, \\'ashington county, and Ball seminarv, in Hoosic 
Falls, kept by R. L. Lord, son of President Lord, of Dartmouth College. 
We looked at Williamstown College, Massachusetts, and afterwards at 
Union, Schenectady. Neither President Mark Hopkins of the former, or Dr. 
Nott of the latter admired us, and the tutors were equally perverse! We 
were admitted to practice law first in all the courts of New York, then the 
supreme court of Vermont; next to all the courts of Illinois; then to the 
United States District and Circuit courts, and was admitted at Fort Dodge 
in 1857. We had been here most of tlie time for a year and a half pre- 

NoT OF Record — "Our records do not show the name of George W. 
Brizee as ever having served in the Chicago City Council." — James T. Igoc, 
City Clerk, Chicago, III. 

Recalling Brizee — One of the older resident of Fort Dodge who knew 
Brizee in the old days, says of him: "He was a typical early day news- 
paper editor. His Centennial History of Fort Dodge was considerable of a 
venture at that time, but did not prove a remunerative venture. He left 
Fort Dodge for Chicago soon after the publication of the pamphlet his- 
tory, and I do not think anyone has ever heard of him since." And another: 
"He left Fort Dodge sometime in the 50's, I think it was '58 or '59. He 
went to Chicago to practice law. He told my father that a man amounted 
to nothing until he got his name in the papers or other notoriety, and the 
ne.\t thing we heard was that he stabbed a man on the streets in Chicago." 



viously. In March, 1859, we started for Colorado and did well, but got 
rid of our means before we left. During the war we were in an Iowa regi- 
ment first — after in the Forty-third Missouri. We are not ashamed of our 
record in that regiment. Since the war we have been to the Colorado mines 
three times, and always made money, but money and ourself never could 
keep company long. We were never mercenary — always charitable! We 
have been connected as contributor, correspondent or editor of the follow- 
ing journals: Vermont Gazette, Bennington, Vermont; Chicago Post, 
(partner with R. P. Hamilton, grandson of Alex. Hamilton) ; Fort Dodge 
Sentinel, (editor for two years, A. S. White, proprietor); Chicago Times; 
Des Moines Times, assistant editor; Daily Neics, St. Joseph, Missouri — 
editor-in-chief, 1864; New York World, correspondent from Colorado; Sun- 
day Herald, Troy, New York, editor; Whitehall Times, New York, 1868, 
editor; Saturday Bulletin, Troy, 1869, editor; Peru Sentinel, Indiana, 1873, 
assistant editor; La Porte Chronicle, Indiana, 1874, assistant editor; Peru 
Daily Times, Peru, Indiana, 1875, editor-in-chief. 

He was with the company from Fort Dodge that went to the 
lakes on the rescue mission after the massacre, and incorporates in this 
centennial history his own story of that eventful march in which two 
of the best known Fort Dodgers lost their lives. Because this story 
relates to so important an event, and because it gives us another pen 
picture of our town founder, it may be given here even at some 
length : 

We had been in Fort Dodge before, and were pretty well acquainted 
when we arrived at the Wahkonsa House about the middle of March, 1857. 

"Alderman" Brizee's City — "For some weeks prior to court a very 
modest notice adorned some of the public places of town much as follows: 

"'To all whom it may concern: Notice is hereby given that on the 6th 
day of March the undersigned, petitioner, will present to the district court, 
of Iowa, in and for Kossuth county, a petition stating that he is the owner 
of the north half of Section 15, Township 97, north of Range 28 west, in 
Kossuth comity, Iowa, which has been platted and recorded as the town of 
Ashuelot; and that he is the owner of all the lots and blocks described there- 
in, and asking that the said plat and all the streets, avenues, alleys, and 
public places therein be vacated. Any person interested therein may ap- 
pear at the above-mentioned time and place and show cause why the decree 
therein asked may not be granted. — //''. H. Nycum' 

"To nine out of ten of those who saw it probably no idea of its meaning 
was conveyed. To early settlers, however, the name of Ashuelot recalled 
a whole chapter of history and awoke many memories of the prospective 
city of the west, which by decision of the court will soon return with its 
parks, and wharves, and steamboat landings to good, ordinary pasture land, 
while its romantic name will be remembered with things of the past. 

"Ashuelot was platted in July, 1858, by one of the most striking char- 
acters who ever landed in Kossuth. George W. Brizee was at that time an 
alderman of Chicago, and what his idea was in starting a city is still a 
m\stery, but whatever it was he arrived with that intent, full of whisky, 
loaded with revolvers and bowie knives, and anxious to find the 'd — dest, 
meanest, poorest, and most worthless piece of land in the county to build a 
citv on.' The north end of the county was absolutely devoid of settlement, 
and into that he struck, and after a week returned, with his place chosen on 
the north half of the section John Chapin's farm is on, in Portland town- 
ship, a fine piece of land, as it happened. This he platted and then went 
away. In a few weeks he came with some men to start his city, and, as 
W. H. Ingham's was the last house north, he arrived there just at night. 



There was a terrific excitement. The Indians had been killing whites in 
the vicinity of Spirit Lake. A meetii.g was beii.g held at the old brick school 
house, and Buncombe and Richards, and the father of the town, Major 
Williams, had been harangiiig the crowd. Others had been expending elo- 
quence and there was a general ambition with each man to kill an Indian. 
Judge Richards raised a company, of which he was captain, and we joined 
as a private; John F. Duncombe got up his company — a very fine one; Cap- 
tain J. C. Johnson, of Webster City, assisted by Judge Maxwell, raised an- 
other company and their services were accepted by Major Williams, who 
held a commission under the authority- of the state to preserve peace and 
raise men when necessary on the frontier to prevent Indian depredations. 
There was one hundred and ten men of us when we left the town on the 
24th of March, 1857. We marched up Williams street and halted near the 
major's house, then we marched by the Catholic church, crossing Soldier 
creek and camped the first night on Badger. When we left, the women 
waved their handkerchiefs and little children cheered us on our way. The 
second night we were at Dakota, and the third, on a swell of the prairie, 
miles from timber, where we suffered very much. The next day we ar- 
rived at McKnight's Point. The snow, of which there was an abundance, 
began to be soft, and where the prairie was rolling it became necessar\ 
for us to tread a track for the baggage wagons. One day while in Palo 
Alto county, a part of the advance guard came riding back and reported 

The men had evidently all been drinking hard and driving fast, and as they 
crossed a rough bridge near there they had jolted a box of whisky bottles, 
that took up most of the wagon, and broken them all. The whisky had 
soaked the road, but some was still dripping from the box, when Brizee 
saw what had happened. W^ith one great oath he jumped for the box, and 
putting his mouth to the leak he held on till the last drop had run out. 

"Brizee and his men spent some time on the new town site and put up 
three or four log houses. These have long since disappeared, being hauled 
off by neighbors for firewood. After a short time, however, Brizee left and 
was never seen in the county again. A number of deeds were recorded for 
lots, but the consideration in nearly all cases was $1, and just what the 
object was in the city does not appear. It was certainly for foreign specula- 
tion, but nothing seemed to come of it. After leaving Kossuth, beautiful 
lithograph plats were gotten out, and there near a flourishing town were 
steamboats ploughing the foaming waters of the upper Des Moines river 
and the mighty Buffalo. The wharves and landings were pictured out as 
very extensive affairs, and even on the plat the river line is designated as 
'Des Moines Place.' The parks of the city were W^alnut, Locust and Kos- 
suth Square, while a large plat was 'reserved for churches and schools. 
Such was Ashuelot in its prime, and such was its founder. Brizee, it is 
thought, got into trouble in Denver and came to a bad end. The town, 
after a peaceful and midisturbed quiet of thirty years, returns to the things 
that are as though thev had not been." — The Upper Des Mnitrrs, March 21, 
1888. 

The Official Record 

Grantor, Lewis H. Smith, countv judge. Book A, Page 10. Filed Aug. 
23, 1858. Description, N. 1-2, 15, 97, 28, as Ashuelot. 

Grantor, Lewis H. Smith, county judge. Book A, Page 238. Considera- 
tion, $1. Grantee, Joseph Thompson. Filed Nov. 8, 1858. Description, lot 
17 in Des Moines Place. 

Grantor, George W. Brizee. Book A, Page 248. Consideration, $200. 
Grantee, Andrew Danz. Filed Dec. 14, 1858. Description, lots 3 and 4, 
block 50. 

Grantor, Andrew T. Sherman. Book A, Page 315. Consideration, $1. 
Grantee, Oliver S. West. Filed Sept. 15, 1859. Description, lot 1, block 66. 
Grantor, W. H. Nvcum. Book 4, Page 316. Char, inst., vacation. De- 
scription, vacates Ashuelot. Filed May 7, 1888. 



Indians at the front. They were not Indians, however. It was a party of 
settlers driven from Springfield, just over the line, in Minnesota. We re- 
member of them William L. Church, his wife, and Lusella Swanger, her sis- 
ter, who had a bullet in her shoulder; a man named Thomas, who was shot 
in the arm, which had to be amputated; a boy named Stewart, whose father, 
mother and sisters had been killed, and who only saved himself by lying 
down by the side of a log while the butchery was going on, and a man named 
Shiglev. There were several other grown persons and many children 
with this crowd. The women had waded the Des Moines river and had 
become wet and had their clothing frozen about them. When they first saw 
us they believed we were Indians, and gave themselves up for lost. We 
made them as comfortable as possible, dividing our blankets. The next day 
the major sent them with a guard to the "Irish settlement" — Emmettsburgh. 
Then we pursued our way and camped at Mud lakes and the day following 
at Granger's claim, thirteen miles from Spirit Lake. 

When we had arrived at the last mentioned point. Major Williams 
detailed a number of men, we believe about sixteen, to proceed to the lake 
and burv the dead. Being a newspaper correspondent, we thought we had 
a right to accompany the crowd. Duncombe advised us not to go, and Major 
Williams positively forbade it. He told us afterward that it was on ac- 
count of sore feet. The burying of tiie dead and other matters are detailed 
in E. G. Morgan's part of this work. 

Cur detachment marched immediately for home. It was on Saturday 
about two o'clock when we reached Cylinder creek. Any of us could step 
across it on our way up, but on our return it was at least a quarter of a mile 
wide. We made boats of our wagon boxes, calking them with blankets. 
Major ^^Mlliams, Charles B. Richards, John F. Duncombe and some others 
crossed and got to Shippy's claim, where they passed Saturday and Sun- 
day nights. They did the best they could to rescue us, but of no avail. 
There was no timber in five or six miles, and the wind blew a hurricane. 
C. C. Carpenter, Frank A. Stratton, \^'inton Smith and myself lay together 
covered with a blanket and had a small piece of canvass to break the wind. 
It was attached to the wheels of our wagon near our heads. There we lay 
without anything to eat until Monday morning, when we crossed the ice. 
There was no difficulty whatever in removing horses and wagons in the 
same way at the same time. Though there was water all about us, we had 
not dared to leave our berths to get a drink — fearful of freezing before we 
could get back. It was upon this dreadful Saturday afternoon that Burk- 
liolder and Johnson perished. On the return of the detail they chose to go 
around a slough which the others marched through. They finally took off 
their boots to cross it, could not get them on again. Their feet being ban- 
daged up with rags, they traveled with difficulty while the cold was in- 
tense. It is said that "whom the CJods love die young." We were intimate 
with them both, particularly with Burkholder. They were noble young men. 

We made our way back to Fort Dodge from Shippy's in squads. Gov- 
ernor Carpenter, Frank A. Stratton, "Lew," a fellow who teamed for Hum- 
phreys, Winton Smith and ourself, stopped the last night out at Cramer's 
claim in Humboldt county. We afforded our companions much amusement 
by going through the ice on Badger creek and just keeping our neck out, 
after which we pursued our way to Fort Dodge. 

A big meeting was held at the brick school house on our return. The 
major reported to the citizens and Duncombe, Richards and others made 
speeches. The scare, however, was kept up for weeks, not onl\' here, but in 
\\'right and other counties. 

The origin of this Indian difficulty was as follows: Ink-a-pa-do-ta's 
band had camped on Herron and Spirit lakes and vicinity for a long time. 
In the fall of 1856 ihey drove down through Clay county to Smithland. They 
commenced stealing and the settlers disarmed them. It was intended to re- 
turn their arms, but thev moved off in the night. Thev went to Correction- 
ville, to Cherokee, to Taylor's claim, to Mead's, and to CJillette's Cirove, 



taking all the arms and ammunition they could lay their hands on, and rob- 
bing as they went, becoming worse as they approached Spirit Lake, where 
the massacre was perpetrated. We interviewed Mrs. Marble in Chicago at 
the Blossom House, in the summer of 1857, for the Chicago Times. She said 
that after the massacre the Indians encamped on Herron Lake, about twenty 
miles north of Spirit Lake, and stayed there several weeks, keeping out a 
strict watch. Com-a-do-ta, Ink-a-pa-do-ta's son, took Miss CJardner for his 
squaw. Mrs. Thatcher was shot while crossing the Big Sioux river. Two 
La Parle Indians bought the captives and took them to an agencv. The 
price paid was a pony and five gallons of whisky. Miss Gardner was after- 
wards brought to Fort Dodge and lived for a time at Major Williams' house. 

Piiblishinjj this Centennial History, wliich consisted of a brief 
sketch of early Fort Dodge, written by E. G. Morgan, with notes 
antl a few personal sketches added, did not prove profitable and very 
shortly after it appeared Brizee left the Fort a second time, and no- 
body seems to have heard of him since. 

There is a notice of Brizee in one of the earlv numbers of Tlic 
Bee, the manuscript newspaper of Algona, in which George P. Tay- 
lor makes this humorous reference to him: 

"Died, in Ashuelot, Sept. 12, 1858, Geo. W. Brizee, in the 28th vear of 
his age. It is not our purpose to write a eulogy on the death of the de- 
ceased. He was universally' known as an orator and politician. He was 
properly the left wing of the democracy of Kossuth and the far north- 
west. His disease was a kind of heart disorder brought on by drinking too 
much Des Moines river water, which never agreed with him, and by press 
of money matters. He died in the full brilliancy of his career and his funeral 
services will be attended at the town hall on the first day of January, 1860. 
Chief mourner, J. C. Cummins, whom he owed $7 and upwards. Second 
best, S. S. Henderson, who mourns his loss to the amount of $3.50. Third 
ditto, James Patterson, who loses for a deed to the Ashuelot hotel, and $2.75 
in cash. Fourth ditto, G. P. Taylor, who is short just $1.25 and his wife has 
to go barefooted in consequence." 

Brizee in his notes of early Fort Dodge history confirms the im- 
pression Mr. Taylor gives of him. Speaking of political meetings 
which he addressed with C. C. Carpenter, John F. Duncombe and 
others, he says: "A jug of whiskey was as inseparable from such a 
gathering as the orator, and when these American sovereigns had dnmk 
sufficiently, which was generally before the speaker had arri\cd, 
their uproar was sufficient to dri\e wolves into their holes." 

Brizee was a typical character of the frontier, not wanting in 
brains and training, but a soldier of fortime. Ashuelot was a t\pical 
town site of the Brizee frontier. But Ashuelot was a beautiful name, 
and it is too bad that in big Kossuth it is merely a memory. 



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Gresco 

Cresco (I ijrow) was distinctive amopii the four first towns in 
that it did not grow. In fact, although it was properly recorded in 
the county books, it really never had a legal existence. In some way 
Mr. Kellogg did not perfect title to his claim, no deeds were ever 
recorded in Cresco, and the town site was never vacated. Cresco 
became again plain farm land without the bother of collecting quit 
claim deeds and redeeming from tax sales. 

Cresco was also the last of four towns to be recorded, although 
Mr. Kellogg had begun to promote western towns in the 50's, selling 
shares in "the distribution of Kellogg's western village homesteads." 
He had entered this land when he first came to Webster City, his son, 
Dr. C. F. Kellogg of Clinton, says, for the purpose of laying out one 
of his towns. But he did not come to Kossuth county until 185(), 
and did not record his town plat until two years after that. 

Mr. Kellogg had come from Cleveland, Ohio, where he had 
been fortunate in a real estate speculation and coming west had 

How Cresco Was Promoted — "Frank Mason of Palmer, Mass., spent 
Sunday in Algona on a mission that will interest all the pioneers, and that 
recalls one of the curious chapters of early history. He brought with him 
two certificates issued by H. Kellogg in 1856 entitling his aunt to draw two 
town lots in the then promising town of Cresco. These faded certificates, 
curiously printed, have been preserved in the family over 40 years, and as 
Mr. Mason was coming west this spring on business he decided to come 
around by Kossuth county and find out what kind of a city Cresco had grown 
to be, and what kind of lots his certificates called for. He spent a couple of 
days pleasantly in Algona, but did not visit the place south of town sonic 
four miles where the lone tree is all that remains to indicate that H. Kellogg 
ever lived in these parts, or to tell the story of what promised to be one 
of the cities of Iowa. Before Mr. Mason left he consented, if his relatives 
in the east were willing, to send the certificates back to T/ie Upper Dcs 
Moines for preservation as part of the history of the county. One of them 
reads as follows : 

" 'No. 1870. The holder thereof is entitled to one share in the distribu- 
tion of Kellogg's western village homesteads. Deeds will be given imme- 
diately after the distribution. Dated at Fulton City, 111., this 8th day of 
August, A. D., 1856. H. Kellogg, proprietor; G. J. Booth, agent.' 

"Accompanying them is the following interesting letter from Mr. Kel- 
logp. written three years after the certificates had been sold, picturing 
realistically the financial situation in Iowa in 1859: 

" 'Cfnce of H. Kellogg, dealer in real estate, Cresco, Kossuth county, 
Iowa, June 27, 1859— Miss Sarah Mason, Dear Madam: Your note of the 
5th of March last came to hand some little time since, and should have been 
answered ere this. In reply I will state that I expect to be able to make dis- 
tribution of the Cresco property as early as the last of July or first of 
August. I have yet some six or seven buildings to erect on the site before 
I can consummate title with the government. Owing to the great delay in 




HENRY P:ELL0GG 

Dr. C. F. Kellogg says: "The Kellogg family moved from Webster City 
and arrived upon the site selected for the town of Cresco on the second day 
of \Iay, 1856, and at once began the construction of a dwelling of rough 
boards." 

Mr. Kellogg at once took an active part in all public affairs. He was 
one of the editors of the Algona Bee, as was also his son-in-law, Mr. Eaton. 
His death was caused by a runaway accident which Dr. Kellogg describes. 
They were on their way to Webster City where the son was to enlist in the 
army. "Father started with me at early dawn and in his buggy drove as 
far as Owl Lake where we stopped to eat our lunch and take a nap on the 
ground, for be it known the nearest habitation was fifteen miles away. 
After refreshing ourselves we hitched up and started on our way and had 
gone perhaps half a mile when our animal took a notion to leave the road 
to take a bite of resin weed of which he was fond. Father had the reins 
and was driving. I took the whip from the socket and gave the animal 
a sharp tap on his rump to remind him tliat this was not a botanical party. 
The horse, to resent such an affront to iiis dignity, kicked with both feet 
with such vehemence that it broke the thill strap on one side, throwing the 
buggy around sideways, and very promptly ran away, throwing both of us 
out and capsizing the rig, wiiich he dragged about twenty rods, where he 
broke loose and fell all tangled up in the harness. I received a broken leg 
and father three broken ribs, one of whicii pierced his hug, injuries from 
which he died the following January." 



centered on old Risley county, now Hamilton, arrivinji; just as Hamil- 
ton county was separated from Webster and a new count}' seat was 
to be created. The first comers had incorporated New Castle and 
West New Castle, the main part of present day Webster City bein^ 
on the plat of West New Castle. Mr. Kellogg bought some property 
adjoining the New Castles and laid it out and the name was changed 
to Webster City. Just how the honors are to be distributed between 
Mr. Kellogg and the Wilsons in this matter of creating and naming 
Webster City has never been quite satisfactorily determined. But 
Mr. Kellogg was unfortunate in li;iving some deeds made in blank, 
properly signed and certified by himself and Mrs. Kellogg, to be 
used as his real estate was sold. One of his aides, becoming possessed 
of these blanks, and harboring a grievance against Mr. Kellogg, 
wrote in the descriptions of some of his best properties and had the 
deeds recorded. In the legal tangle that followed Mr. Kellogg lost 
out. 

There was one building on the town site of Cresco which Dr. 
Kellogg remembers to have had a store front. Lewis H. Smith, who 
recalls the old building, says: 

"The old Kellogg house on the Cresco town site which I remem- 
ber was not much of a house, being a frame building about 18x26 or 

procuring title to these lands from the government my expenses have been 
exceedingly hea\y, making the property cost me many times over what was 
originally expected. These lands were expected to be put in market some 
three years ago, but have been withheld until now, hence the delay. Owing 
to these causes I am now asking of tlie share holders a favor which I hope 
will be responded to with regard to the interest of all. The financial af- 
fairs here in the west are such that I am in a measure compelled to ask 
the favor alluded to, which is for those interested to advance the small 
amount of $1 per lot, or share, and thus assist me to consummate the im- 
provements sooner than I otherwise could if left to rely on my own re- 
sources. This advance will enable me to close up the matter at once and 
pay for deeds, recording, etc. You will please let me hear from you im- 
mediately on the receipts of this and oblige. Yours very respectfully, H. 
Kellogg.' 

"C^n the bottom of this letter is the following entry: 'July 3, 1859. 
Sent $2 to H. Kellogg.' Mr. Kellogg got out fancy plats of Cresco and had 
wharves and steamboats on the Des Moines east of it, but his deal with 
the government was never 'consummated,' we believe, and the city of 
Cresco never actuallv had a legal existence." — The L'ppfr Des Moines, Julv 
5, 1899. 

The Gfficlxl Record — Grantor, Henrv Kellogg. Book A, Page 14. 
Filed, date. Sep. 19, 1859. Description, S. 1-2 26 95 29 platted as Town of 
Cresco. This plat was never vacated and no lots were sold. 

Kellogg's Gardetvi Seeds — "Mr. Kellogg proposed to raise garden seeds 
as an occupation and did raise and put up a few seeds, making his own 
paper packages, and also his wooden stamps to print the outside of the 
packages. I don't think he ever sold many seeds and he soon gave up the 
business." — Recnlledinns of Leivis II. Smith. 



thereabouts. I don't remember that it had a store front, though it 
may have had. It may have had bhick wahiut shingles as in those 
days all the shingles were of black walnut or basswood, steamed and 
cut with a large shingle knife, made with a lever by hand." 

That it was not much of a house is made probable by the state- 
ment of Dr. Kellogg that after one week "we were housed under 
our own roof and the town of Cresco was upon the map." One week 
buildings are not very pretentious, even in these days. 

The old house did not stand very long, for the Kellogg boys 
went to the war, and the father was injured in a runaway and moved 
to Algona where he died. 

Mr. Eaton, Mr. Kellogg's son-in-law, reports: 

"The house built by Mr. Kellogg in Cresco, after his death was 
torn down by settlers over on the west branch. They stole the lumber 
in it and had sort of a bee among the neighbors, to carry it away. 
The boys at that time were in the army." 

Tobacco Under Difficulties — "I might relate a little incident about 
a man by the name of Hamilton Edwards, who weighed over 200 pounds. 
He ran out of tobacco and there was no way of him getting it but to swim 
across the river. The water was high at the time. The only means of 
crossing was a small canoe or boat. He knew he could not go in the boat, 
for it would sink with him, so he removed his clothing and put his clothes 
in the boat and he swam across the river, and pushed the boat ahead of him 
and got his tobacco, and I might add that after he chewed his tobacco he 
would put it around the fireplace to dry and his wife would smoke it." — 
Recollections of IV. D. Eaton. 

Stood for Many Years — The people of Cresco held a separate celebra- 
tion and raised a burr oak pole which, though bent nearly double by the 
storms of nineteen winters, is still standing, and can be seen about 80 rods 
southwest of Alexander Brown's residence. — A. A. C. in Upper Dcs Moines, 
July 28, 1875. 

The Indian Josh — "A frequent visitor to our home was the Indian 
'Josh,' the sole survivor of that bloody night when Henry Lott wiped out 
with his good ax the band of old Si-dom-i-na-do-ta, brother of that red 
devil Ink-pa-du-tah, who led the band of outlawed Siouxthat massacreed 
the settlers at Spirit Lake in the early days of 1857. JoK was a nephew 
of this old renegade, and was always believed by the settlers to have been 
present at that massacre, though he persistently denied any participatio i 
in it. Jolifi was a good natured chap, and always ready to please a friend, 
and the source of much amusement. I will relate an episode that offered 
an insight into Indian character and afforded no little amusement as well 
as chagrin to the family. Mv father had been to much trouble to cultivate 
a garden and among his choicest plants were a fine lot of cabbages about 
six inches high. The familv could not all absent themselves from home at 
one time as some person must remain at home to drive awav from those 
cabbage plants the hungrv grasshoppers. It happened at this time that Josh 
was on one of his periodic visits to our home and the family, wishirg to go 
to Algona for the afternoon, induced Josh, for a few bright pennies, to 
remain and care for the garden. Father took a small brush from a willow 
tree and demonstrated to Josh how to keep the hoppers from his pet cab- 



The "Lone Tree"" was more fortunate. Dr. Kelloi:;^:; reports: 

"Should there be any question as to the a^e of the 'Lone Tree' 
in Cresco, I can ^i\e its exact age. That tree, a cottonvvood, came 
up in an onion bed in our garden, in the spring of 1859, and was 
cultivated carefully by my father, and when I went into the army was 
about 8 feet high and as thick as my arm, upon my return to Kos- 
suth, it had grown to a tree 20 feet high and as large around as my 
body." 

Cresco has this distinction that two men are living today (June, 
1923) who were there when the town w^as platted. It would be hard 
to name anybody who was in Irvington when the town was platted, ami 
nobody has survived Ashuelot. Aside from Mr. Smith, who is living, 
there is nobody who was in Algona when the Algona plat was filed. 

\V. D. Eaton had come with Mr. Kellogg from Cleveland, Ohio, 
and was with him in Cresco, marrying his daughter there. AL. 
Eaton is living today in Lyons, just north of Clinton, where he has 

bages, and we left Josh a vigilant custodian of tlie garden. I'pon our re- 
turn later in the day Josh triumphantly led the way to the cabbage patch 
and showed my amazed parent how effectually he had driven away tiif 
grasshoppers and killed scores of them, but — not a single plant was left 
standing. Poor Josh could not understand my father's amazement, nor the 
hilarity of the rest of us, and it took much diplomatic handling and a good 
supper to smooth his ruffled dignity. He did not comprehend that the 
preservation of the plants was the essential duty, and riglit well had he 
attended to that dutv, we had to buv our cabbages that fall." — Rccollcctinns 
of Dr. C. F. Kellogg. 

Starting Webster City — "On July 5, 1855, Walter C. Wilson, Henry 
Kellogg and Charles Wilder filed for record the original plat of Webster 
City. It included New Castle and joined West New Castle on the south." — 
History of Hamilton County by J. W. Lee. 

Enlisted in the War — "Charles Kellogg, son of Henry Kellogg, Es(|., 
of Cresco, has left to join Captain Berkley's cavalry company. Charley will 
make a good soldier, and that is the kind we want." — Pioneer Press, August 
31, 1861. 

Father Taylor Visits Cresco — Mr. Editor: — The schools in Cresco 1 
found "few and far between." But the schools, as well as the township, 
can say Crescimus, we grow. In subdistrict No. 1 last summer there was a 
well educated, active, interesting teacher, with two scholars, which I believe 
was not the usual number. The house was not exactly like the whited 
sephulchers of old. It was beautiful outside, but was nearly vacant within. 
I did not visit the winter school. Have not learned whether the house is 
seated. The other school in the same subdistrict was held in the remnant 
of a log house, which had done good service in its day, having furnished 
a temporary residence for several families for a longer or shorter period, 
and though not on the town site, I believe was for a time considered the 
Town of Cresco. as the postoffice was kept there, and it was the place for 
the transaction of all important business. A little expense served^ to fit it 
up verv well for the simmer scholars, who appeared to be making very 
good progress in their studies. I failed to note the number of scholars in 
attendance. The winter school in the same neighborhood was taight in an- 



lived since 1861. Dr. C. F. Kellogji, coroner of Clinton county, 
came with his father and enlisted in the army from Cresco. 

Air. Eaton says: 

"In the fall of 1856, I went up with Mr. Kellogg, and filed on the 
northeast quarter of section 34, and remained there until the fall of 1859. 
I was there when Mr. Pvellogg built his house at Cresco, and opened up the 
section upon which we had filed. I had a child born there in the year 1858 
and died here (Lyons) in the spring of 1861. Mrs. Kellogg, after her hus- 
band's death, came down and lived with us in "65, and a daughter died in 
'69. I was made clerk of the school district up there. Directors were ap- 
pointed, but there was never a school meeting or a school while I was there. 
I was up there twenty-four jears after and found that the roof of my log 
cabin had not leaked in twenty-four years. I built the cabin. It cost $75.00, 
the roof $25.00 and the logs cost $18.00 and had shaved oak and black 
walnut shingles." 

Both Mr. Eaton and Dr. Kellogg tell of the famous cold winter 

of 1857, that started the Indians on their evil mission at the lakes, 

and of the wet suriimer of 1858. Mr. Eaton says: 

"The winter was very, very cold. There was ice found on the south 
bank of the river until the middle of May, and we used that water and ice 
for drink. The Fourth of July that year was very cold. There was a 
Fourth of July celebration and picnic to be held in the woods, but on account 
of the cold there was nothing done outside, except to test the ox strength, 
to see which could pull the other backward. I did not even go out to see it, 
it was so cold. There was snow found in the Algona timber that Fourth 
of July. 

Dr. Kellogg adds this about that Fourth of July: 

"The spring of '58 opened wet and cold. Old settlers will recall the 
cold Fourth of July of that year, when the young people dancing upon the 
green in Heckart's grove were driven by the cold to the old town hall where 
fires were kindled and we danced until daylight — with the exception of about 
two hours that we put in fighting fire in Ambrose Call's timber, which was 

other deserted log cabin, very imperfectly warmed by the remnants of an 
old cook stove which should have been sold for old iron long ago. The 
appearance of the six scholars present on a very cold stormy day, indicated 
that the patrons of the school might have made money, to say nothing of 
brains, by providing the teacher with a comfortable room in which to ex- 
hibit his skill in teaching "the young idea how to shoot." I think it is a 
question worthy of consideration by the several Boards of School Directors 
in this county, whether it is expedient to have a school in a community 
where a room suitable cannot be provided. It is an easy matter to count 
the children in a neighborhood and make it appear that it is very important 
that thev should have a school and then when a teacher has been employed 
at an expense of from $20 to $30 per month, perhaps those who were the 
most clamorous for a school, keep their children at home. Usually in a 
neighborhood where there are children enough for even a small school there 
are men enough to fit up a temporary school house, which would answer a 
verv good purpose till they can be provided with one more expensive and 
pleasant. Usually it is poor policy to attempt to have a school in the house 
with a familv, certainly where the houses are as small as most of them are 
in this community. To say nothing of other interruptions and inconveniences, 
there is danger that the head of the family mav feel too much responsibility 
respecting the management of the school and thus there may be friction be- 
tween family government and school government. C. Taylor, County Su- 
perintendent. — In Upper Des Moines, June 27, 1867. 



eventually extinguished by a fall of snow, this on the Fourth of July, 1858. 
The rain was so incessant and streams all overflowing their banks, it was 
practically impossible to get provisions from the outside, and many suffered 
for the necessities of life. Salt became scarce and was divided among 
families, corn bread was made from meal ground in coffee mills, and cof- 
fee was made from parched corn. Tobacco users were chewing willow 
bark or most any old thing." 

Then the panic of 1857 began to make itself felt. l^r. Kellogg 
reports : 

"The general unrest and financial stringency, with a currencv utterly 
unreliable, made the people about as wretched as was possible. The crops 
were a failure — only gold and silver received in payment of bills until H. 
F. Watson issued personal script for 50 cents, 25 cents and $1.00. Things 
went from bad to worse during the year '60, and the fateful spring of "61 
brought up face to face with war. My brother and I had taken the contract 
to carry the mail on two "star routes" as they were called, one from Algona 
to Clear Lake and one from Spirit Lake to Yankton. Both of us had our 
fighting blood up and it only remained for the affair at Sumpter to send us 
off. The night Frank Rist brought the news I sat down and wrote my resig- 
nation and sent it in, giving my reason therefor and not waiting for a re- 
ply, announced to my parents at supper table that at daylight I would start 
for Webster City where Captain Berkley, a prominent attorney and old 
friend, was ralsir.g a company for the Second Iowa Cavalry. After supper 
I saddled my horse and rode to Algona to say good-bye to my friends there." 

It was the belief of many tliat the north and south railroad, when 
it came, would be surveyed on the west side of the river. In that 
event there would be a Cresco today and no Irvington. But the 
railroads did not come by way of Fort Dodge as everybody anticipated 
in those days. Therefore Cresco (I grow) did not grow. 

The Indian Danger — "Many of the timid ones, having the memory 
of Spirit Lake, packed up their scanty belongings and fled the country, 
among these were Hamilton and John Edwards, and the elder Edwards, 
neighbors of ours, leaving but a few families on our side of the river. We 
laid in a goodly supply of ammunition, arranged the house into an im- 
provised fort and went about the even tenor of our ways, knowing our 
faithful dogs would give warning of the approach of danger by night, and 
our own vigilance by day would make us reasonably safe. Nothing oc- 
curred during the season to disturb our serenity and Frank Rist, the mail 
carrier, kept us in touch with the outside world by a tri-weekly mail from 
Fort Dodge."" — Recollections of Dr. C. F. Kellogg. 

A Loyal Nook — The township clerk of Cresco township, Kossutii comity 
— \Ir. J. G. Foster — having noticed a statement in this paper that one town- 
ship in Mills county was considerable of a banner township, because it 
gave Grant 81 majority, and negro suffrage 83, writes to us that he thinks 
his township can out banner that a long ways. Its total poll was 46 votes, 
42 of which were for Grant and 43 for manhood suffrage. \\'e confess, 
Brother Foster, that your township has a religious and political bible of 
the orthodox stamp; and we agree with you that such a locality and peo- 
ple deserve better treatment as regards a postoffice and mail route. When 
General Grant takes the reins of the government, and the mail lines, we 
advise you to move upon his works and demand a postoffice and regular 
mail of your own. Iowa has a voice now which no one can disregard, and 
your loyal township cannot long be slighted or slapped even by so big a 
thing as a postmaster general.'" — Upper Des Moines, Dec. 16, 1868. 



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Old Time Postoffices 

The map on the opposite pa<;e was published evidentl\' in the mid- 
tile 70's between the time of the arrival of the Milwaukee into Al- 
gona and the extension west. By turning the page the reader will 
come upon a second map published in the later 70's evidently after the 
Milwaukee had been extended, and the Minneapolis and St. Louis 
had crossed the southeastern corner of the county. These maps are 
substantially the same, excepting that the one shows some prospective 
railroads, that never materialized as they were prospected, although 
the guesses were not bad, and the other map shows a country post- 
oflice north of present day Burt, that is not shown anywhere else, 
and which did not have a long existence. These maps are published 
here because they locate most of the early postoflfices. 

As none of the country postof^ces are left, all of the postoffices in 
the county having gone to the railroad towns, it is interesting to re- 
call them, and to consider in how many cases they expressed the hope, 
if not the definite purpose, of the pioneers to have towns of their own. 

Probably the oldest of these offices was Kossuth Center, which 
will be found variously located on the maps of this little book. Mr. 
Smith says Kossuth Center was named by William H. Ingham, and 
was for years at his home on Plum Creek, known in later days as 
the Rice farm. Mr. Ingham often related how in the first days the 
Ir\ington promoters came to him and suggested a county seat at Irv- 
ington and another at Kossuth Center. But he had joined with Al- 
gona for the county seat and voted with Algona. The Kossuth Cen- 
ter postoffice had many perigrinations, but probably was longer at 
tne Fitch farm north of A. L. Seeley's, and across the road from the 
Keith farm than anywhere else. But Sylvanus Rickard, Edward 

Old Seneca — "Seneca in 1868 was in Algona township; later in Green- 
wood. The postoffice was established in 1870 with Edwin Woodworth as 
postmaster, who named it for his old home in western New York. When 
we came into the country the mail came once a week when it was good 
weather, but sometimes there was a long time between mails. It was brought 
on horseback by boys named Minkler from Algona. I never heard them 
give their names. In 70 or 71 the m"il came regularly twice a week, being 
carried by Robert Pinkerton from Algona to Swan Lake. He also carried 
passengers." — Mrs. L. W. Fish in Upper Des Moines-Republican. 

Present Day Postoffices — The postal guide for 1923 shows the follow- 
ing official postoffices in Kossuth county: Algona, Bancroft, Burt, Fenton, 
Gerled, Hobarton, Irvington, Lakota, Ledyard, Lonerock, Luverne, St. Bene- 
dict, Sexton, Swea City, Titonka, Wesley, Whittemore. 



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Moll, E. Tallman and John Chapin are said to lia\c had xhv Kos- 
suth Center office at one time or another. I'he memory of the pio- 
neers is not very distinct as to this and the Huffalo Fork postoffice at 
Kd Mould's. Neither were the map makers. Buffalo Fork was the 
postoffice Ashuelot would have had if Ashuelot had sur\ i\ed. 

One of the well known postoffices was in Lotts Creek township. 
H. P. Hatch had come to I^otts Creek in 1863 but did not locate un- 
til the next year. He was a well known man in the count\ , running 
as an independent candidate for county treasurer in 1<S7.^ ajjainst M. 
VV. Stough. When the Milwaukee went thr<)u;:h in 1878, Whitte- 
more was platted and the Hatch postoffice was moNed. 

Another of the well known offices was the Hale office in River- 
dale, then part of Cresco. C). F. Hale, for many years county sur- 
\eyor, an active man in public affairs, had come to the south line of 
the county in 1865, immediately on leaving the army. The History 
of Kossuth County, pubished in 1884, speaking of the village of St. 
Joe, says: "1 his was formerly known as Hale's postoffice, sometimes 
as Hale, in honor of ( )scar Hale. 

( )n two of the maps the Darien settlement in Fenton will In- 
found. 

Perhaps as little known as any was Noebla north of present day 
Hurt. I'his postoffice was at the Hiram Norton farm just east of 
the old Wilson place, a half mile east and half mile north of the 
present town. 1 he Nortons were one of the best known of the early 
pioneer families. 

(ireenwood Center is perhaps best known of the early settlements. 
It was on Section 21 on the river. Dr. L. K. Cjarfield, locating there 
in 1863, and also (jeorge ( ). Austin, in the same year. It was from 
(ireenwood Center that the attempt to set up Crocker county was 
made. If Crocker had remained on the map (Ireenwood Center 
might have become a coimty seat, for the railroad towns in northern 
Kossuth had not be^n platted in Crocker county days. 

'Fhe Seneca postoffice was created about 1870, with F. Wood- 
worth first postmaster. Among the well known early settlers were 
Captain S. B. Califf and William Ormiston, both Seneca postmasters. 
Also W. W. Alcorn. 

'Fhe Svvea settlement was in many ways outstanding. Captain 
R. F. Jeansen, representing the American Emigrant compan\ , brought 
a Swedish settlement to Kossuth in the earlv 70's, and built a little 



Baptist church at old Swea. On Eagle Lake he built for himself a 
home much after the fashion of the old country. The captain could 
never accommodate himself to the thought of the Rock Island rail- 
road survey dodging both his town and his home. The landmarks of 
old Swea stand, but Swea Cit}- has supplanted it. 

These maps were too early to make note of another of the town 
beginnings, because the first postmaster in Ramsay was not named 
until in 1877. But the Ramsay settlement is entitled to notice, be- 
cause Norman Collar went out in the "big prairie" in 1867 and set- 
tled on the east bank of L nion Slough, making a half way house for 
the Algona-Blue P^arth stage, which went around the "slough" to 
avoid the danger of getting lost in the open prairie to the west. Ram- 
say is marked on the township maps as a town, and there were real 
ambitions there at one time. But the railroad went by way of old 
Germania, now Lacota. Ramsay postmasters were Peter Schneider, 
E. Esebrant. John Meinburg, B. F. Smitli, Adam F'isher, and G. 
Wortman, who had the store. Of all the boosters for old Ramsay, 
B. F. Smith was easily first. 



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